How the elderly are seizing America

Paul Harris

The United States is changing as it caters for the post-war generation, which prefers rock'n'roll to a rocking chair.

NEXT WEEK Warren Beatty will turn 70. It is an age when traditionally life should be relaxing, reflective and calm. But it is not panning out that way. Like millions of other elderly Americans, Beatty is not going gentle into that good night. In fact, he was recently snapped leaving Los Angeles' notorious nightclub Hyde, a hot spot usually frequented by such youthful tearaways as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

Beatty is the famous face of a social phenomenon sweeping the United States as its population becomes more and more dominated by the elderly. A quiet retirement is not for them. Internet dating website match.com says its most lucrative demographic segment is the over-50s. It is clearly no longer about a home in Florida, pottering around the garden, and a pension plan. It is now a story of new jobs, increased political power and a devil-may-care attitude to living life however one sees fit. They are redefining what it means to grow old in America.

Demographic revolution

The country is undergoing a demographic revolution as it ages and braces itself for the retirement of the post-war baby-boomer generation. It is a shift that will change the way America works and lives. The U.S. is about to become a society that increasingly exists not for the benefit of the young, but for the benefit of the old.

The facts speak for themselves. The boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. There are about 76 million of them and now each day 10,000 boomers hit their 50th birthdays. The leading edge of the generation has just started turning 61. As they grow old they are leaving behind a huge employment gap. Some firms are facing the retirement of up to 40 per cent of their workforce over the next decade. Yet the boomers are also creating new "silver industries" designed to match their new needs. Advertisers and marketing firms are scrambling to catch up. No one quite knows what it all will mean, only that change is coming.

"It is going to change the way we do everything, absolutely everything," said Bob Fell, director of strategy and planning at Varsity, a firm that advises companies on how to cope with this brave new Boomer world.

Across every aspect of American society, high-profile elderly people are having the time of their lives. Keeping Beatty company in Hollywood is Jack Nicholson. He, too, turns 70 in the next few weeks but has just starred in an Oscar-winning film and still fills the gossip columns by seducing women young enough to be his granddaughter.

It is not just men. Diane Keaton, 61, recently spoke of her love life in terms that sound as though they come from a teenager. "I'm attracted to men and I love playing around them. But a life shared together? That's a different world," she told More magazine. The New York Post called her a "perennial bachelorette."

It is not just in entertainment either. In journalism Barbara Walters still rules the roost at her ABC show, The View. She is 76. In politics Democrat Nancy Pelosi has just become the first woman Speaker of Congress. She is 66. On the Republican side of the aisle, John McCain is a front-runner for the 2008 presidential election. He could easily win the race for the White House and become the most powerful man in the world. He is 70 years old, and most Americans do not care about his age at all. In the world of business, men like Viacom's Sumner Redstone, 83, run huge corporate empires with the verve of people half their age.
As the elderly grow in numbers and become more powerful, they are changing America in ways that go far beyond just health costs and social security payments. "The landscape of American society has really changed. It is a whole new world," said Joseph Quinn, an economist at Boston College and author of Economic Implications of an Ageing Society.

The elderly in America are now fuelling a housing boom as they seek to buy second homes in warmer climes. They are increasingly shunning any form of retirement — through need or choice — and taking on second jobs and new careers. They are flexing their political muscles. The main group lobbying for the elderly, the American Association of Retired People, is one of the most powerful organisations in the country. It has 35 million members and an operating budget of $800 million a year. Nor is it shy of using its power. It was instrumental in derailing President George W Bush's plans for social security reform and spent more than $20 million on a campaign to do so. The reasons for America's ageing population are simple. First, despite all the headlines over an obesity crisis, Americans are healthier and longer-lived than at any time in their history. The second reason is the baby-boomers. The generational bulge born from the increased birth rate in the two decades after the Second World War is moving through into its twilight years.

That does not just mean an increase in numbers of elderly, however. It also means a different type of elderly person. "They don't want to recognise the fact that they are getting old. They are going to go down fighting," said Mr. Fell.

The retirement of the baby-boomers could even change something as fundamental as the five-day working week. As more and more elderly people keep working part-time or seasonally, the average American job could become a three days a week affair or just nine months of the year, allowing an aged employee the chance to still spend the summer months somewhere warm. "Flexibility of employment will be the key," said Professor Quinn.

There is a downside to all this. Generations below the baby-boomers simply do not provide enough people to fill all the jobs being created by the American economy. That ensures that many elderly people will have to keep working whether they choose to or not: society cannot afford to have them retire. Some experts believe that spiralling social security costs are already completely unsustainable. Social security and healthcare cost the federal government $1.034 trillion in 2005, more than twice the defence budget. By 2030 the costs could be as much as 75 per cent of the entire federal budget.

Yet by 2010 there is expected to be a labour shortage in America of 10 million jobs. That problem could be filled by immigration. "We have a safety valve in this country in that folks want to come and live here," said Professor Quinn. But immigration is a hot-button issue and it is far from certain that it is politically feasible to encourage cheap labour to move to the U.S. America is already building a wall on its border with Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out.

The other massive problem is the increased health costs and rising numbers of elderly diseases. Alzheimer's sufferers alone are rapidly increasing in numbers. There are five million with Alzheimer's in America, a rise of 10 per cent from five years ago. By 2050 that number is expected to triple.

New opportunities

But for the moment many Americans standing on the edge of their elder years are taking a leaf out of Warren Beatty's book and embracing new opportunities. Sometimes they are completely unexpected. Take Jeanie Linders, 58. Inspired by the changes her generation of women baby-boomers was going through she began writing a musical based on them. She called it Menopause: The Musical. It had its debut in a tiny Florida theatre in 2001. Six years later, it is still playing to baby-boomer audiences in their tens of thousands. It has been staged in 18 different U.S. cities and nine different countries.

Next week it has its premiere in London, England. Ms. Linders sees it as an example of continuing Boomer success and is adamant that ageing members of that generation are going to revolutionise America. "We are blazing a new path. Women and men of my generation are reinventing themselves. We do not feel old. We don't know what old means," she said.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?

ANTONIA JUHASZ
NYT, 13 March

TODAY more than three-quarters of the world’s oil is owned and controlled by governments. It wasn’t always this way.

Until about 35 years ago, the world’s oil was largely in the hands of seven corporations based in the United States and Europe. Those seven have since merged into four: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. They are among the world’s largest and most powerful financial empires. But ever since they lost their exclusive control of the oil to the governments, the companies have been trying to get it back.

Iraq’s oil reserves — thought to be the second largest in the world — have always been high on the corporate wish list. In 1998, Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron, told a San Francisco audience, “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas — reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to.”

A new oil law set to go before the Iraqi Parliament this month would, if passed, go a long way toward helping the oil companies achieve their goal. The Iraq hydrocarbon law would take the majority of Iraq’s oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi government and open it to international oil companies for a generation or more.

In March 2001, the National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force), which included executives of America’s largest energy companies, recommended that the United States government support initiatives by Middle Eastern countries “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.” One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve. It does so to the benefit of the companies, but to the great detriment of Iraq’s economy, democracy and sovereignty.

Since the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has been aggressive in shepherding the oil law toward passage. It is one of the president’s benchmarks for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a fact that Mr. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gen. William Casey, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and other administration officials are publicly emphasizing with increasing urgency.

The administration has highlighted the law’s revenue sharing plan, under which the central government would distribute oil revenues throughout the nation on a per capita basis. But the benefits of this excellent proposal are radically undercut by the law’s many other provisions — these allow much (if not most) of Iraq’s oil revenues to flow out of the country and into the pockets of international oil companies.

The law would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil companies except for limited (although highly lucrative) marketing contracts, into a commercial industry, all-but-privatized, that is fully open to all international oil companies.

The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known — and all of its as yet undiscovered — fields open to foreign control.

The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new technologies. They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country. The vast majority of Iraq’s oil would then be left underground for at least two years rather than being used for the country’s economic development.

The international oil companies could also be offered some of the most corporate-friendly contracts in the world, including what are called production sharing agreements. These agreements are the oil industry’s preferred model, but are roundly rejected by all the top oil producing countries in the Middle East because they grant long-term contracts (20 to 35 years in the case of Iraq’s draft law) and greater control, ownership and profits to the companies than other models. In fact, they are used for only approximately 12 percent of the world’s oil.

Iraq’s neighbors Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia maintain nationalized oil systems and have outlawed foreign control over oil development. They all hire international oil companies as contractors to provide specific services as needed, for a limited duration, and without giving the foreign company any direct interest in the oil produced.

Iraqis may very well choose to use the expertise and experience of international oil companies. They are most likely to do so in a manner that best serves their own needs if they are freed from the tremendous external pressure being exercised by the Bush administration, the oil corporations — and the presence of 140,000 members of the American military.

Iraq’s five trade union federations, representing hundreds of thousands of workers, released a statement opposing the law and rejecting “the handing of control over oil to foreign companies, which would undermine the sovereignty of the state and the dignity of the Iraqi people.” They ask for more time, less pressure and a chance at the democracy they have been promised.

Antonia Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International, a watchdog group, is the author of “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.”

Bush Meets Anger Over Immigration Issue as He Promotes Free Trade in Guatemala

JIM RUTENBERG and MARC LACEY
NYT, 13 March

GUATEMALA CITY, March 12 — President Bush came to this struggling Central American nation on Tuesday bearing a message that free trade with the United States would improve conditions for even the poorest Latin Americans.

But he was also confronted with an angry, outside-in perspective on the immigration debate raging at home, with even his otherwise friendly host, President Óscar Berger, using a ceremonial welcome to criticize the arrest of several hundred illegal workers, many of them Guatemalans, in Massachusetts last week.

“As is the case in every mature relationship, once in a while differences of opinion arise,” Mr. Berger said in the central courtyard of the grand presidential palace here. “For example, with regard to the issue of migrants, and particularly those who have been deported without clear justification.”

The remark, coming during otherwise warm comments by Mr. Berger, reflected the longstanding anger here over deportation of Guatemalans from the United States, which has been stoked by a raid last week in which more than 300 workers were arrested at Michael Bianco Inc., a company in New Bedford, Mass., that provides vests for the military.

It gave Mr. Bush a taste of what is to come in the next and final stop in his Latin American tour, to Mérida, Mexico, where immigration is expected to be high on the agenda with President Felipe Calderón.
But with a much smaller population, Guatemala is also a focal point in the immigration debate — 10 percent of its population resides in the United States, according to officials traveling with the president.

While Mr. Bush’s agenda here included a proposed new regional effort to attack the drug syndicates — a majority of Colombian cocaine that finds its way to the United States comes through here — free trade and even adoption, Mr. Bush and Mr. Berger said immigration was a major topic of discussion.

Newspapers here have been dominated by news of the raid, and stories abound of families torn apart and children left behind as their parents were sent off to Texas and New Mexico for deportation, but federal officials say 60 people were released for humanitarian reasons.

Facing pointed questions from Guatemalan journalists, Mr. Bush stood by the raid, saying, “People will be treated with respect, but the United States will enforce our law.”

Mr. Bush said he disputed “conspiracies” relayed by Mr. Berger that children were taken away from families.

Mr. Bush denied such accounts. “No es la verdad,” Mr. Bush said, “That’s not the way America operates. We’re a decent, compassionate country. Those are the kind of things we do not do. We believe in families, and we’ll treat people with dignity.”

Some of those theories have also held that the raid was executed in advance of Mr. Bush’s visit here, to send a message, an idea that United States officials denied.

In fact, an American official who was part of Mr. Bush’s delegation said the timing of the Massachusetts raid could not have been worse, and served to inflame an already emotional issue, adding more passion to anti-Bush protests here.

“Bush doesn’t accept us on his land, so why should we let him on ours,” said Armando Chavajay, a protester outside the Mayan spiritual site that Mr. Bush visited at Iximché.

“They grab us in the U.S. and send us out like criminals,” he said. “We are going there to work and help our families. Now he will know how we feel.”

The protest at Iximché came on top of fierce confrontations throughout the capital, Guatemala City, in the afternoon, with riot police officers firing tear gas at protesters who were hurling stones and eggs, setting off fireworks and burning American flags. One McDonald’s restaurant had anti-Bush slurs written on it.

American officials have suggested that the protests dogging Mr. Bush throughout his trip are being instigated and paid for by his chief nemesis in the region, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

Along the winding road to Iximché, Mr. Bush’s motorcade passed hundreds of indigenous demonstrators who faced off with police and soldiers to oppose the president’s visit to the Mayan spiritual site. At one point protesters managed to block the president’s route with boulders, but soldiers cleared them away in time for the motorcade to pass.

“Iximché represents the dignity of the Mayan people and we can’t have a man who represents war come to this place,” said Jorge Morales, a protest leader. “Our ancestors have spent hundreds of years on this ground and they will feel his presence.”

Mr. Morales and other leaders of indigenous groups said they would perform a ritual cleansing of the negative energy at the site, complete with candles, flowers and song and dance. “We will do a thorough spiritual cleaning,” he said.”

But after Mr. Bush left, the initial cleanup took a different form. Local people picked up the kernels of corn that had been thrown on the ground as part of the welcome of Mr. Bush. With the bulk of the population living in poverty, local people said they did not want the food to go to waste.

It is that kind of crushing poverty that Mr. Bush said he came here to address. And it is that kind of poverty that fuels anger at the United States and its trade policy. Mr. Chávez has tapped that anger in his push for nationalizing industry and cutting interaction with the United States.
While Mr. Chávez was in Haiti promoting his aid to the region, Mr. Bush was in the Guatemalan countryside to highlight his aid efforts and to tout the benefits of trade.

Mr. Bush started his day in Santa Cruz Balanyá, visiting a medical operation run jointly by the United States and Guatemalan militaries. On another stop, in a traditional, embroidered jacket, Mr. Bush helped load crates of lettuce onto a truck at a packing station in the village of Chirijuyu. The station was operated by Labradores Mayas, a food cooperative that was started by a local farmer who took advantage of an irrigation system built with a Usaid loan to transform subsistence farms into commercial enterprises that now distribute to Wal-Mart Central America and McDonald’s.

“Free trade is important,” Mr. Bush said. “It’s a gateway. It creates jobs in America and it creates jobs here.”

It was a message Mr. Bush would repeat in fending off criticism of his free-trade policy, saying at his press briefing with Mr. Berger: “I also believe most citizens in Guatemala would rather find meaningful jobs at home instead of having to travel to a foreign land to work. And therefore, the more we can enhance prosperity in our neighborhood, the more we can encourage trade that actually yields jobs and stability.”

Jim Rutenberg reported from Guatemala City, and Marc Lacey from Iximché, Guatemala.

Strike at Big Shipyard Is Yet Another Effect of Katrina

ADAM NOSSITER
NYT, 13 March

PASCAGOULA, Miss., March 12 — The long arm of Hurricane Katrina has pushed thousands off the job and on strike at one of the nation’s biggest shipyards here, workers and union officials say.

On Thursday, nearly 7,000 workers went on strike at the Ingalls shipyard, owned by Northrop Grumman, which builds ships for the Navy. On the picket line Monday, strikers said they were demanding better wages and benefits to make up for sharp post-Katrina increases in the price of everything from milk to gas to rent, which they said are bringing family finances to the breaking point.

The walkout here is believed to be the first major strike related to Hurricane Katrina, which continues to disrupt many aspects of life up and down the Gulf Coast. Few places were as hard-hit as this small industrial town, where the water crept halfway up downtown and the beachfront was wiped out, and workers spoke Monday of losing homes, cars and a way of life to the storm.

They left the shipyard, which has supported this region for decades, after rejecting a modest increase in the $18.32 an hour many now make. Workers here said the wage rise would be wiped out by a steep increase in health insurance premiums, and would be inadequate to counter the storm’s lingering fallout.

They earn some of the highest wages in the area, at Mississippi’s largest employer. But many workers said they were still struggling, speaking of payday loans from the company credit union just to buy gasoline. They said the company’s offer of a $2.50-per-hour raise over three years was not good enough, with local rents and house prices having doubled, in some cases, and a $2.59 gallon of milk now costing $4.19. Throw in a proposed $50-per-month health premium increase, and the raise disappears, they said.

“Folks have already been through a hard time with Katrina,” said Willie Hammond, a forklift driver and father of three. “They left their houses to get this company up and running, and this is how they show their appreciation? It was an insult to the employees, that little offer they made us.”

Bill George, a pipe welder, said prices in the area had quadrupled since the storm. “Half the people here are living in trailers,” he said.

Natasha Smith, a painter, said her rent had risen to $801 a month, from $669. “We’re single parents, and we can’t make it on what they’re paying us,” she said.

A company spokesman said Monday that there were no plans for negotiations. In a statement, Northrop Grumman said its offer was “fair and competitive,” and noted that other company plants in the region had accepted it. The company added: “It was our desire that this labor agreement address the financial challenges of Katrina, and we believe the proposed contract did just that.” Workers sharply disputed that contention, however.

“Katrina took everything, and now they’re trying to take the main thing, our dignity,” said Shirley Hayes, who oversees shipments on the assembly line. “They’re just playing us cheap,” she said.

John Reed, an electrician, said, “We’re living out here paycheck to paycheck, and we’re tired of it.”

Like other strikers, Mr. Reed was standing near the dusty median of the plant’s long entrance road, which was picket central on Monday. The strikers had set up tents and barbecue grills in the mild spring weather, and the blues blared from giant speakers. The shipyard’s major projects — a giant destroyer and several transport ships — loomed in the distance on the Mississippi Sound, and seagulls whirled overhead.

The shipyard has been a mainstay in Pascagoula since before World War II. Dozens of businesses here depend on its paychecks, and at quitting time the local roads are clogged. The destroyer Cole was repaired here after the terrorist attack on its hull, and over the years the yard has turned out cruisers, destroyers, submarines and ammunition ships.
Workers have not struck the plant since 1999, and local officials speak fearfully about the effects of a prolonged strike. Still, there appeared to be considerable support for the workers in town — grocery stores have donated ice, water and hot dogs.

With the company not budging, the strikers were vowing to settle in for the long haul. “If we can survive Katrina, we can survive this,” Mr. Reed said.

Indeed, the workers here displayed a remarkable nonchalance about the hardships ahead. Bobby Hinger, the steward of the carpenters’ shop, stayed at the plant during the storm, water up to his neck. Then, he said: “They gave us a steak dinner and a jacket that don’t fit us, and they said, ‘See ya.’ This isn’t about being greedy. It’s about being paid what we’re worth.”

What We See in Hugo Chávez

By LUISA VALENZUELA
Buenos Aires
NYT, 17 March

THE fervent welcome that greeted President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela during his visit to Argentina a week ago was inexplicable to some Argentines and left others indignant. Many here tend to mistrust populism and demagoguery, finding them redolent of Peronism. But even among the wary, a window of hope has opened, with Mr. Chávez as its symbol.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Juan Perón’s time. And it was the expansive waters of our own broad river that defined the vectors of force last weekend. For once, the tensions in the American hemisphere flowed on an east-west axis along the Río de la Plata — which means “River of Silver” and by extension, very appropriately in this case, “River of Money.”

The struggle was about energy, both concrete and metaphorical, and equally combustible in both forms. Across the river in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, the presence of President George W. Bush caused red-hot passions to flare, along with sizable protests like those he faced in Brazil. In Buenos Aires, my city, on the opposite bank of that river of money, red abounded as well, though in our case it had a very different connotation.

Red was the color of President Chávez’s jacket and of many of the flags brought by the masses who flooded into a stadium to hear the president of Venezuela speak.

Unlike the homogenous rallies of Peronist times, the 30,000 people in this crowd came from very diverse backgrounds. In Argentina, the economic crisis of December 2001 significantly altered not only our social dynamic but our semantics. We no longer talk about the “pueblo” — which means town or village as well as people. Now we talk about the “gente,” which also means people, but with a different nuance, derived as it is from the Latin gens meaning race, clan or breed.

The new vocabulary transcends distinctions of class: the middle classes have now merged with the poor to demand their rights. Hence many students and professionals were in attendance that day, not necessarily attracted by the figure of President Chávez himself so much as by the anti-imperialist opportunity he symbolized. We Argentines, who once imagined ourselves more sophisticated, or more European, than the citizens of neighboring states, were brought closer to the rest of the continent by our impoverishment, and we find ourselves more open to the idea of pan-Latin American solidarity.

Perhaps last week’s crowd also recognized the part that President Chávez’s monetary aid played in our recuperation of that illusion known as “national identity.” For Argentina had virtually disappeared as an autonomous country during the presidency of Carlos Menem from 1989 to 1999, the era of our “carnal relations” with the United States, which took the form of spurious privatizations and a fictitious exchange rate.

While many in Argentina would, nevertheless, not hesitate to call the Venezuelan president a clown or a madman, it’s worth keeping in mind that a very heady dose of megalomania is a prerequisite for even dreaming of confronting a rival as overwhelmingly powerful as the United States — which is also led by a president viewed, in many quarters, as a clown and a madman.

President Chávez’s weapons of seduction are his superabundance of petrodollars and his obsession with a shared Latin American project. His plan is to realize the dream of Simón Bolívar, the old utopian vision of Latin American integration that today seems more viable than ever before.

It may be that President Bush chose to venture into these forgotten Southern latitudes to counter that vision. In Brazil, he tried to draw attention to the production of ethanol, an ecologically correct rival to petroleum that nonetheless depletes the earth. And in Uruguay, all Mr. Bush seemed to be trying to do was irritate the other governments of South America by promoting a Free Trade Area of the Americas project in opposition to Mercosur, the southern common market formed in 1991 by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and, somewhat later, Venezuela.

These things sometimes backfire. President Bush found himself repudiated on one bank of the Plata while President Chávez was getting ovations on the opposite one: each contender in his corner and the moral triumph to the last man left standing, as in a boxing ring.

Some Argentines severely criticized President Nestor Kirchner for providing his Venezuelan counterpart with such a platform, complaining that President Chávez bought and paid for his visit by showering Argentina with dollars and benefits. Not so. The bargain seems fair — oil in exchange for agricultural technology and experts — and since he came to power, President Kirchner has made his country the platform for several other presidents from the Americas: Fidel Castro, Michelle Bachelet, Evo Morales and President Chávez himself, on previous occasions.

Two major Argentine characteristics are in play here: intrinsic distrust and the need for immediate gratification. Mr. Chávez awakens both of these inclinations, and it’s interesting to see them balance each other out.
The dream of a single-currency Latin American Union, modeled on the European Union, to create, insofar as possible, a buffer against the hegemony of the United States no longer seems so impossible.

I’m no political analyst; I have delved into politics only as a fiction writer.
But I’m an optimist by nature, and the feeling of empowerment that President Chávez instills, and that various South American governments are endorsing, strikes me as a good engine for further progress — a means of upgrading ourselves from the status of someone’s backyard into that of a truly autonomous region, beyond Mr. Chávez, Mr. Bush and every other form of demagoguery.

Luisa Valenzuela is the author of “Black Novel With Argentines” and “The Lizard’s Tail.” This article was translated by Esther Allen from the Spanish.

Odd Man Out

Seema Mustafa
Deccan Chronicle, 17 March

There are two reactions overflowing from the Nandigram firing. One, led by the BJP/Congress/Trinamul Congress/Jamaat-e-Islami that is exultant that the Left citadel has finally been shaken, with all groups lining up to hammer in what they hope will be amongst the last nails in the Left coffin. The second, of deep dismay and apprehension that extends through the Left cadres, to their supporters, and to those sections of civil society that can look beyond the politics of opportunism to realise that a weakened Left today will rob Indian pluralism and democracy of an important shield in the struggle against communalism and imperialism.

This not to say that what has happened in Nandigram is acceptable. Police firing on the poor has to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. There can be no excuse whatsoever for killing the poor, and the West Bengal government should have realised that once the police was sent with rubber and real bullets to Nandigram, violence would follow.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has clearly stopped feeling the pulse of the people who have voted the Left Front back to power, without interruption, for decades. His attempts at globalisation have moved out of the realm of statements that had invited great admiration from Congress and BJP stalwarts, to direct action against the people coming in the way. It has begun to appear that he regards the urban middle class as his constituency and not the traditional peasant base that is being targeted in what he justifies as much-needed industrialisation.

There are no two views that the limited land holdings cannot feed the expanding peasant families for too long. But there can also be no two views, that acquisition of land cannot be done through force. The West Bengal government at least is expected to convince the peasants through direct dialogue, to ensure that all are more than adequately compensated before taking over the precious land for the special economic zone or whatever else the chief minister has in mind. The West Bengal peasant, unlike his brethren in other northern states, has under communist rule been radicalised sufficiently to know his rights and fight for them. He cannot be pushed under through the use of force, and it is surprising that the chief minister is seeking to do precisely what his personal supporters in the BJP, Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal etc., have been doing against the farmers for decades now. The difference is that in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the poor farmer is marginalised and oppressed, he does not know his rights, and even if he does, he does not have the wherewithal to fight for these. In West Bengal he has been educated and empowered by the Left government that has now, unfortunately, been placed at the receiving end by its chief minister.

Interestingly, those holding up the proceedings in Parliament on the Nandigram violence have taken exceptional care to blame the CPI(M), but to defend Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. BJP leader L.K. Advani went so far as to say that the chief minister was a good man. Both the BJP and the Congress party see him as the odd man out in the CPI(M) because he has publicly expressed support for their economic policies.

Veteran leader Jyoti Basu has taken the chief minister to task in the CPI(M) meeting at Kolkata after the Nandigram violence, and made it clear that the Left coalition could not continue to work in the present fashion.

What he might or might not have said is that if the Left continues with the chief minister’s anti-farmer, pro-reforms policies in the current fashion, the CPI(M) could lose its bastion, and thus, its influence in national politics. Kerala gives it a government every alternative term, Tripura is a small state, and the Left has not found it easy to grow in the other states. West Bengal, thus, remains crucial for the Left movement in this country and a chief minister that cannot strengthen it should be seen as expendable.

Those looking on with dismay include those in the CPI(M). Discipline makes them silent, but they are finding it difficult to justify the violence on their own people. The excuses being offered by the state government so far are not acceptable, as these do not withstand scrutiny and definitely do not explain the human tragedy. Today, Indian polity has reached a point where democracy, secularism, pluralism make little sense to the politicians of the BJP, Congress and most of the regional parties. The Left alone has shown the commitment, and even the dedication, to speak up for what is right. So there is a certain apprehension about the future of the nation if the CPI(M) weakens and is unable to remain in a position to influence Parliament. This is what the other political parties along with the big powers are striving for, and this is what the Left has to resist.

But it can do so only when its own house is in order. Of course, Lalu Prasad Yadav who is speaking as loudly as the Congress and the BJP today on such issues, encouraged caste based violence in Bihar, pitting citizens against each other through exclusivist politics. The BJP is not in a position to even whisper on issues of violence, being the perpetrator of hate crimes all over the country. The Congress party, unable to even spell the word "secularism," today is leading a government of compromise in all fields and is being made to stop short of a complete, unabashed sell-out only by the influence that the Left parties wield in this government. Be it the issue of secularism, be it the need to focus economic policies on India’s poor, be it nonalignment, be it opposition to US and Israel intervention in Indian politics, the Left parties are the only ones speaking out on issues vital for the health and future of India.

This is the truth, even for those who do not like to admit it. The BJP and the Congress have lost their voice a long time ago, one seeks power through hate filled propaganda and divisive politics, and the other seeks to remain in power by paying lip service and little else to the politics of secularism, equity and justice. One has seen the politics of the Mamata Banerjees and her ilk on the streets, and this is definitely not designed to steer India towards stability and prosperity. The Jamaat-e-Islami and now the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind that is fast losing its basic character after the death of Maulana Madani, are parties now fired with political ambitions and have made it their duty to attack the CPI(M) as the ruling party in West Bengal that has the support of the majority of the Muslims.

These two fundamentalist parties are bound to jump in whenever there is such an issue, and encouraged by others, are now visible in West Bengal seeking to colour all issues — even Nandigram — with a Muslim fanatical bias.

It is imperative, thus, for the CPI(M) to take honest stock of the situation and not defend what is really the indefensible. The answer does not lie in replacing the poor of one party by the cadres of another, but in directly addressing the issue without prejudice and arrogance, and resolving the matter in a manner that there is no room left for other political parties to exploit. It does not seem that the present chief minister can do it, in which case he should be made expendable. If he can, he must demonstrate through direct remedial action that the farmers are his first priority, and that industrialisation will be dependent on their will and consent. The police attack on the hapless farmers will have large scale repercussions, and the issue will not be allowed to die down by the vested political interests looking for a foothold in West Bengal. Instead of blaming and accusing them, it is now for the Left parties to hunker down, not break ranks, and set into motion a series of bold measures to regain what they have lost, and to build bridges with the affected poor regardless of political affiliations. One cannot condemn the poor because they owe allegiance to a political rival, wisdom and good politics lie in winning them over.

Poet as Bengal's prophet

Chandan Mitra
The Pioner, 17 March

The more I recall my childhood reading of Rabindranath Tagore, the more prophetic his uncanny perceptions appear. It is remarkable how in the most prolific phase of his creativity more than 80 years ago India's first Nobel laureate wrote poems and passages that have timeless applicability. Take his short poem, Dui Bigha Jomi, for example. It narrates the pathos of a marginal farmer who possessed just two bighas of land. One day, the local zamindar took it away from him, forcing the poor man out of home, hearth and village. Many years later, he returned to his abandoned homestead and overpowered by nostalgia trudged to the plot of land that once belonged to him.

It was an emotional reunion between an ordinary peasant and a piece of land he was passionately attached to. To wallow in reminiscences, he rested under the shade of a mango tree he had planted long ago. It had blossomed over the years and was laden with ripe fruits at that time of year. As he caressed his memories, two mangoes dropped beside him as if by way of loving recognition. Even as the hapless farmer tearfully acknowledged what he thought was a divine blessing, the zamindar's musclemen came swooping down accusing him of stealing their master's fruit. He was dragged into the landlord's house where fawning courtiers abused and humiliated the indigent farmer, charging him with shameless theft. The powerful man who had snatched away those paltry two bighas did not even recognise its original owner. As he was turfed out with dire warnings, the two mangoes forcibly seized, the farmer lamented to himself:

Ei jagatey haye, shei beshi chaye/Jaar ache bhoori-bhoori,
Rajar hasto korey samasto kangaler dhan churi...
Tumi maharaj, sadhu holey aaj/Aami aaj chor botey!

(In this world, alas, the greediest are those who have the most. The kings' nature is to rob the poor of whatever they possess...
What irony! The landlord is feted for honesty while I am supposed to be a thief today!)

This is precisely what is happening in West Bengal under the CPI(M)'s "dictatorship of the proletariat". The proletariat is the target of land grabbers, the wretched of the earth are fair game for slaughter by the state, for everything is justified to preserve the privileges of the dictators.

Even as the so-called communists hobnob with migrant non-Bengali moneybags, property developers and crony capitalist interlopers, the State's fertile agricultural lands are being mercilessly seized for the benefit of industrialists domestic and foreign. Is it any wonder that after the Singur experience, the farming community in East Medinipur's Nandigram has risen in revolt?

Predictably, the CPM is unfazed, determined to brazen out all shades of criticism. This is how communists always react for they seriously believe only they enjoy the monopoly of the truth. Introspection is not a word listed in the communist lexicon. This is how the character of World War II changed overnight. It was an "imperialist war" for the duration of the Stalin-Ribbentrop Pact, when Moscow tacitly applauded Hitler's marauding forces, kept silent on the repression of Jews, and immensely enjoyed the military discomfiture of the Allies. When the wily Hitler broke the deal and attacked the Socialist Fatherland, the War got converted into "People's War", to be waged in defence of "democracy".

Thus, the Quit India movement prompted Indian communists to openly act as informers against the Congress for the colonial intelligence.

The old adage that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it seems prophetic in the contemporary context too. While the West Bengal unit of the Congress has described the Nandigram incidents as "genocide" and demanded imposition of President's Rule, the party's High Command does not even dare to suggest that CPM even restore "Rule of law" in Bengal!

CPM's defence of the indefensible actions of Bloody Wednesday (March 14) is a hilarious litany of concoctions. I heard them arguing with journalists in Parliament's Central Hall last Thursday that the country ought to be grateful to the Buddhadeb regime for "retrieving" Nandigram for India! According to their convoluted logic, the region had been taken over by Naxalites and, believe it or not, "Muslim obscurantists"! Allegedly, between Left and Right radicals, all vestige of Government authority had been forced out of a cluster of villages. The mullahs led by the Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind, allegedly didn't want family planning and pulse polio campaigns to succeed, while the Naxalites were attempting to create a Che Guevara style "liberated zone".

So, West Bengal's patriotic police, under the inspired guidance of CPM cadres steeped in Marx-Lenin-Buddhadeb Thought, braved the bullets of dangerous anti-national forces to accomplish the grand mission of Nandigram's reintegration! That, in the process nearly 20 people were killed, scores grievously hurt, journalists forced to stay out of the cordoned area, were merely unavoidable collateral damage. What was not stated was that "recapture" had become essential for the land had been pledged to Indonesia's Salem Group to set up a convenient chemical hub close to the Haldia port. They have already been allotted a sizeable amount of arable land near Kolkata for something called Mahabharat Scooters, slated to produce an unheard-of two-wheeler named Arjun!

When Bajaj scooters are the world's number one brand in the genre, why should anybody in his right mind buy Arjun? Unless, of course, the party directs each member to become a salesman for 'Red' Salem, which is quite within the realms of possibility!

Levity apart, the most important by-product of the Singur-Nandigram outrages is that the CPM, with nearly three-fourth majority in the West Bengal Assembly, has suddenly forfeited the moral right to rule. As a student decades ago, I read a book titled Moral Economy of the Peasant with reference to farmers in Java, Indonesia. Its writer had aptly portrayed the strong sense of right and wrong that prevailed in rural society. Without being a historian or sociologist, Mahatma Gandhi had grasped peasant morality with exceeding perceptiveness. Which is why he succeeded in the face of British imperial might. When a regime loses the moral right to rule, as communists did in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, no amount of force can hold its edifice together.

Right-wing dictatorships in Marcos's Philippines and Reza Shah Pahlavi's Iran, failed equally in the long run.

Bullets silence people but temporarily. Silently, Bengal must be recalling Rabindranath's questions to God in anguish over the Jalianwala Bagh massacre:

Kontho amaar ruddho ajike, banshi sangeet-hara, amaboshyar kaara,
Lupto korechho amaar bhubon dusshopner toley,
Tai to tomay shudhai oshrujoley:

Jahara tomar bishayechhey bayu, nibhaechhey tobo aalo,
Tumi ki taader khoma koriachho? Tumi ki beshechho bhalo?

(My voice is choked, my flute plays music no more; it's dark like a prison cell in a moonless night. My world has dissolved under a nightmare. That's why I ask with tears in my eyes: Those who poisoned the environment you created, extinguished the lamps you lit, have you forgiven them? Have you loved them?)

Blood on the soil

Barkha Dutt
HT, March 16

The images of the bloodbath at Nandigram are haunting — a young woman’s dead body being rolled off a rickety vegetable cart, her green sari soaked in blood; an old man’s head draped in bloody bandages, his arm outstretched for help that never came; a policeman mercilessly thrashing an unarmed villager. This looked like a one-sided battle.

But the grim emotional dimension to the West Bengal violence does not necessarily help in answering the questions at the heart of the debate. Is this Brand Buddha’s fall from grace? How much of the trouble is because of the Chief Minister’s own bungling and how much of it is him being offered up at the guillotine by rivals within his own party? And most importantly, which side does the conflict between farms and factories leave you and me on? Does this herald the end of India’s much-hyped SEZ scheme? And more to the point, should it?

Mishandling is too benign an adjective to describe the callous clumsiness with which the state government has treated the opposition to the Indonesian chemical plant in Nandigram. Two months ago, after the first outburst of violence, the Chief Minister conceded that an unauthorised notice by the Haldia Development Authority had fuelled rumours and unrest. The notice had merely asked the local administration to explore options for land acquisition. But as Nandigram erupted and became a war zone, the Chief Minister went on record to say the notice had been mistakenly issued and he had asked the district magistrate to “tear it up”.

This was in January. So how does the state government explain that in March, 60 days later, the notification had still not been officially withdrawn? And if it had, as the Chief Minister insisted in the assembly, why did the villagers believe otherwise?

The dry and unapologetic response of the state government after this week’s killings has only made matters worse. The Marxists want us to believe that the violence was fomented by outsiders. But wasn’t it a top- level party meeting that sanctioned sending in thousands of policemen?

If it was indeed CPI(M) cadres on the ground that went for the kill, and not the police, isn’t it still the party that has to take the responsibility?

For once, the CPI(M) has to step out of its traditional role as the self-righteous adversary; this time it can’t ask the questions, it has to answer them.

That said, isn’t there something strikingly hypocritical and opportunistic about the protests from the Opposition in West Bengal?

In January, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi perched himself on the back of a bike to take a very visible ride through the affected villages. But how does he explain that among the chief votaries of the SEZ policy have been the Prime Minister and the Commerce Minister? Why are the Reliance SEZ projects sanctioned by the Congress in the states of Haryana, Maharashtra and Punjab (before the party got voted out) any different from West Bengal? L.K. Advani now wants to take a trip to Nandigram, and BJP President Rajnath Singh may well ask for President’s rule in West Bengal. But when the UPA government announced a go-slow on SEZ projects across the country, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was among those who wrote to the government pleading that this would send the wrong signal to investors.

Who can forget last year’s Kalinga Nagar killings in Orissa (an NDA-ruled state) when there was a storm over a Tata steel plant and platoons of policemen pummelled a protest by adivasis, killing 12 tribals in a display of brute force? And as a band of Trinamool Congress workers ransack offices, burn buses, stone cars and force the state government to postpone school exams, are they really helping the villagers of Nandigram and Singur? Or are they looking to revive the flagging career of Mamata Banerjee?

Let’s move beyond the political doublespeak and get to the heart of the matter. Should we be supporting SEZs when they are created by forcibly taking away agricultural land? There are no easy answers, because most of us know precious little about what SEZs stand for and no government has ever bothered to deconstruct them for us.

India was hoping to ape the Chinese model of economic growth when it first proposed such zones in 2001. Today, if China has five such economic enclaves, India boasts of already having eight. And the government has approved in principle another 285 projects.

But what works for Communist China doesn’t necessarily translate that well in democratic India. And we should be proud of that, even if foreign investors and big business houses moan and groan. Dissent may delay the pace of industrialisation, but it keeps us sane and strong as a society.

Even those of us who do not understand the nuances of economics have come to accept that reform cannot be bloodless. We are often impatient with the predictable, do-gooder campaigns against development. We argue passionately against the humbug protests of those who never want the poor to get rich. We want industry, foreign investment, big money and our place on the global stage.

But there’s something sacred about a farmer’s right to his land. And try as we might, we can’t shake off the uncomfortable image of a government wresting away land from a reluctant farmer only to palm it off to some big-bucks millionaire. Yes, industry may eventually have to feed off agricultural land. And the West Bengal government says it has offered the best rehabilitation package of any state to displaced farmers.

But why should compensation be the only revenue model available to farmers? Why can’t the farmer sell his land directly to private players at market rates? Must the government play land-grabber on the deal? And isn’t it possible for business houses to create industrial zones that do not erase farmlands and habitation strips? Must the farmer always be the unwilling evacuee?

An internal Congress report has already warned the party of possible electoral losses if it pushes ahead with an unfettered SEZ policy. But this should not get reduced to the usual capitalist moan of how good economics is always bad politics. Someone needs to tell us why this is good for India, in the first place.

Barkha dutt is managing editor, ndtv 24x7
Email author: barkha@ndtv.com

Defining Buddha moment

Shekhar Gupta
Indian Express, March 17

Behind the dust and the deaths, allegations and recriminations in the wake of the Nandigram development lies another strong political reality.

That India’s politics is changing dramatically after nearly three years of placidity that put pundits to sleep. If Punjab, last month, showed how the definition of what is communal or secular is changing, and how, in a politics stabilising around two broad coalitions, ideological untouchability was history, last week’s events underline another new and fascinating reality. That the Left, which has resisted change in its essential thinking and worldview, and which had actually used this fortuitous foothold in national power to even stop the winds of slow, evolutionary change blowing out of Buddhadeb’s Bengal, now cannot duck the new inevitability. It has to face up to what promises to be the most dramatic transformation. And this, in the history of a party that believes it is blessed with a permanent ideology which had a ready explanation for all that happened in the past, and all that may challenge them in the future.

While Nandigram has now grabbed the headlines and prime-time news time, it has to be understood for its significance, along with that incredible moment in Parliament when MPs of the DMK and the Left, allies at the Centre and in a state (Tamil Nadu), went for each other’s throats over an issue of such high principle as where the new maritime university should be located. Was the CPM now finally emerging as the Communist Party of Bengal, or the Communist Party of Bengal and Kerala? I remember sitting in the audience at a televised discussion that included prominent sportspersons and a CPM MP not long ago where our comrade got most impassioned when the question of Sourav Ganguly’s sack came up. Another Left leader sitting by my side had then remarked, “Even Karl Marx had no answer for Bengali chauvinism.” And that remark was more than some good-humoured self-deprecation unusual for the always so serious and grave Marxists. It was an admission of sorts of where Left politics was headed. Just the number of Parliament seats they had won in two states had given them the ability to swing — to use the language of corporate M&As they so detest — what can only be described as the most stunning leveraged buy-out of our political history.

Just 62 MPs hijacked a whole government in a Parliament of 542, just because they had the leverage of giving the UPA the power, and so many retired old Congressmen governorships, other sinecures and even the last cabinet jobs in political carriers they thought had ended in 1996.

But despite that sudden arrival on the national centre-stage and TV talk shows, the Left remained an essentially regional party, a kind of DMK of two states. Instead of using this God-given opportunity to bring the party closer to the national mainstream, the Left ideologues got so power-drunk as to pretend the revolution had already come about. It was one thing if they continued to treat the Congress with contempt — they fight them in both their pocket boroughs. They also used their remarkable 62/542 leverage to block issues that represented the will of nearly 80 per cent of the same Parliament. The most stunning example of this hubris is their blocking of the pension bill. Nineteen states of the Union have already accepted the new pension plan. But the Left, which represents just two and a quarter, is blocking it on grounds of ideology. It is amazing how a political grouping which boasts more grey matter, and more personal integrity, than any other in India, would make such a prestige issue out of a lost cause, for the new pension plan is already a reality and it is a matter of time before the will of the rest of the Union over-rides the objections of just two and a quarter states.

But why is this relevant now, when we should be addressing more immediate issues, the Left DMK clash in Parliament and Nandigram. It is because these are all inter-connected. My reading of communist literature is not comprehensive enough for me to pull out some nuggets to show how Marx made the same point somewhere, but since he was a wise man, chances are he also said somewhere that there are limits to how long, and how well, you can manage contradictions in any politics.

This would become even tougher in ideological politics where new formulae, ideas and solutions run headlong into old mantras, scriptures and mythology. That is why, the defence of Buddha’s reformist politics in West Bengal, that he had no choice but to work in a larger policy framework decided by the Centre, would come unstuck at some point.

Nandigram has become that point. It has taken the alibi away from the Left. It has also narrowed their political space for manoeuvre. Now they either back Buddha or denounce him. Either they accept his economy as theirs or discard it — along with him — as capitalist contamination. They can’t blame the Centre, they can’t hide behind Mamata Didi, they can’t curse Bush, they can’t find solace in Chavez. This is their moment of truth. Howsoever this ends now, it will change the Left forever.

If Buddha wins, it will change the CPM dramatically. It will then move in the direction of a more mainstream, left-of-centre social democratic formulation. It will no longer be an inward, backward looking party run by ideologues and public sector trade unionists. And, knowing that danger, if the very same forces win and Buddha loses and is purged along with his “toxified” political economic policy, the Left will be reduced to at best 30-40 seats in the next Parliament, and today’s leveraged buyout will be a thing of the past.

There will be no free, 24-hour access to 7 Race Course Road and 10 Janpath, no grandstanding on primetime TV. The most incredible veto on national politics, exercised through the NCMP, a document as one-sided and self-destructive as the Treaty of Versailles, will be in the past. And who knows, Mamata Didi may be ensconced in Writers’ Building, running a state government that might make V.S. Achutanandan look meek and reformist by comparison.

Where India’s once formidable Left wanted to head in the 21st century is a question that its leaders were able to defer because of the dramatic turnaround of May 2004. This sudden arrival in power created a sense of achievement and hubris. Nandigram has now shaken it.

Particularly because Buddhadeb is not about to retreat into the bunker of proletarian, agrarian politics. Even more than Manmohan Singh and Vajpayee, he is willing to defend his economics with conviction. He is no longer confused on the issues that still divide even the Congress: are reforms pro, or anti poor? Is industrialisation good, or bad for the farmer? Should India’s political leaders remain resigned to decades-old politico-economic equations even if they continue to keep us impoverished, or should they move out of the trenches, take a few risks?

Outside of Bengal and Kerala, there are no takers for the Left’s rigid economics. Its vote share is declining all over. In Punjab, 58 of the 59 Left candidates lost deposits. In the past, it had up to 15 MLAs there. In UP it’s finished, the two polls in Bihar last year saw it decline. And if it disowns Buddha now, it will be curtains in Bengal too. On the other hand, Buddha now gives them opportunity to redefine themselves as a modern, social democratic grouping, as their counterparts have done in Europe and some parts of South America.

The Left already has the space of social liberalism in India. More open economics may help them design an optimistic, modern agenda that may find more takers in mainstream India. This is the choice Nandigram and Buddha now confront them with. A slide into rigid, regional irrelevance or the prospect of a mainstream revival.

Governing guideline

Editorial
Indian Express. 17 March

As the investigations carry on into allegations of police trigger-happiness in Nandigram, and the government makes reparations for the loss of life and injury and does so in an environment charged with intra-Left Front bickering and national politicking — all-party inspection teams parachuting down from New Delhi — Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should be able to look at Raj Bhavan without any doubt. The governor has a role — the high constitutional functionary can have a calming presence in such times. But, and with due respect to Governor Gopal Gandhi’s motivation, it is arguable whether his statements have had that effect.
Let us re-emphasise: a governor is no rubber stamp. But equally, it is best and indeed crucial that he does not appear to join a policy debate. Whether he is seen to be doing so, whether his statements can be interpreted as indicating such an intervention is hugely important, particularly at a time when political tempers are running high. It is possible to argue that Governor Gandhi’s statements after the Nandigram incident haven’t quite passed this test. Why is it that gubernatorial assessment of the situation seemed to be coming close to interrogating the state executive’s course of action? If the public expression of “a sense of cold horror” appeared somewhat unhelpful in terms of soothing emotions, the urging later that the transition from agriculture to industry should be a “happy one” came unfortunately close to being read as a corrective prescription. The issue here is not at all whether Bhattacharjee was right or wrong, or the desirability and pace of certain economic policies. The important point is that gubernatorial statements cannot be seen to be making value judgments on what are completely executive decisions. The matter would have been different of course, had constitutional issues been involved. There, governors have a clearly defined role.

A constitutional culture is healthy if all functionaries acknowledge limits, even those that have not been formally put into writing. Governor Gandhi is undoubtedly

Battleground Nandigram - A result of social churning

Saumitra Mohan
Deccan Herald. 16 March

The police, who were at the receiving end again, were left with no other option but to open fire in “self-defence”.

In the history of West Bengal, March 14, 2007 shall be remembered as a momentous day for all negative reasons, when about 18 people fell prey to police firing while many more were injured. These people were those agitating against the so-called acquisitions of land for a proposed Special Economic Zone for Salim Group, an Indonesian multi-national company, in the remote Nandigram village of East Medinipur district. Police, administration and government, naturally, were all roundly criticised for the sanguinary fall-out. But we need to put certain things in perspective before better being able to appreciate the compulsions of use of force over there. Memory fails one when one tries to recollect such “brutal” police action in West Bengal in the recent past, except during the hey days of Naxal violence in the sixties. Administration and police as an inalienable part thereof has been reasonably very disciplined and liberal, while dealing with such agitations. In fact, often it has been accused to be too soft or liberal as being a Red bastion, it cannot be seen to be against the same proletariats whom the government claims to represent. So, what were the compelling circumstances which led to the so-called indiscriminate firing by an otherwise calm police force? Let’s go back in history. As mentioned above, when Nandigram villagers got to know that the government is proposing to acquire land for industrial purposes, like Singur, they became very restive. The same was expected because it happens to be an area with considerable opposition support base. The opposition naturally grabbed the issue for its mobilisational politics and accordingly agitations began against government’s supposed attempts at forcible land acquisitions, even though the same was still on the drawing board and no formal declaration of such intent was communicated by the government.

So, people were made to see the smoke where there was no fire. Pursuant to such belief, there were great agitations leading to skirmishes between the police and the public in January in Nandigram, where a sub-inspector of police was brutally lynched to death while many policemen were injured during the mob attack. Not much was heard of police action against the people. Police remained its restrained self. Since then, the villagers, led by the vested interests, not only dug up and cut off all the approach roads to the village, but also did not allow anyone from the administration or police to visit the village. Not only this, hundreds of people with contrary political colours were made to flee the village and camp outside. For almost two months, Nandigram became a place where the government had ceased to run and it became an enclave immune to any state power. All attempts to bring these people to come out and discuss the problems across the table failed notwithstanding government’s assurance that no land shall be acquired there without popular concurrence. Every time, someone from the administration or the police tried to visit the village, he/she was seen to be coming to take their land or so they were made to believe. Police also needed to enter the village to establish peace not only to rehabilitate the people, who had fled their home and hearth, but also to ferret out the culprits, who had indulged in criminal activities including killing of a police officer in January. So, when the police again tried to enter the village to take control and to establish the rule of law there on March 14, the tension had been brewing in an already volatile Nandigram. Police remained very restrained to begin with against a mob of thousands of people armed with crude weapons, bombs and firearms and tried everything possible in the circumstances including use of tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons but the same was to no avail. When pushed to the wall, following mob violence leading to injury of many policemen, the police were left with no option but to open fire in “self-defence” as also argued by the chief minister himself. One would do well to remember that it was the same police, which was criticised when a senior police officer of the rank of additional superintendent of police was killed by an agitating mob during the Greater Cooch Behar agitations last year in north Bengal.

State power suffering regular reverses at the hands of an armed mob intent on taking law into its hands is not left with much choice. If the same does not happen, the fear of law would go with the state’s surrender of its monopoly over the legitimate use of force. While everyone including the West Bengal Governor has condemned the incident and believe that the same was avoidable, one would say that such things become imperative when vested interests are out to fish in troubled waters and shut all doors on dialogue. One hopes that the CBI inquiries as ordered by the Calcutta High Court would bring out the truth and take to task those responsible for the unfortunate turn of events. Last but not the least, one would say that West Bengal is actually experiencing a social churning these days, trying to jump from one phase of history to the other, from being an agrarian society to being an industrial society. And mind you, change is not without its costs. As they say, there is no gain without some pain. One just hopes, that such bouts of pain would become less and less with every passing day.

(The writer is Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly, West Bengal)

Govt committed to SEZs, says Kamal Nath

PTI, 17 March

Nandigram and political concerns) have not put me off and the government is absolutely committed," he said in an interview.

Unfazed by Nandigram violence and political concerns, the Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath today said the UPA government remains committed to the Special Economic Zones with full backing of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"They (Nandigram and political concerns) have not put me off and the government is absolutely committed," he said in an interview to TV news channel.

When asked whether he enjoyed the support of the Prime Minister, Nath replied, "of course, the (whole) government is committed."

The Minister was confident that Empowered Group of Ministers headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee would go ahead with clearing the SEZ cases where there was no land dispute.

"Of course there is a fear now where land acquisition is concerned... but where there is no land in dispute why should we be worried," he said.

Nath said the land acquisition must be transparent and he was "personally in favour of giving farmers a stake in the development that comes up on their land in addition to the market price".

He said the new National Rehabilitation Policy was likely to include a provision for making farmers stake holders in the development.

"The New Land Acquisition Policy is looking at all these things and which ever it happens, whether by giving him (the farmer) a job or a stake... he must be part and parcel of new development," he said.

Getting away from decisive inaction

ASHOAK UPADHYAY
Growth and Governance
Business Line, 17 March

For the first time in its present tenure, the dream team led by Dr Manmohan Singh has the chance for a series of reforms of the most significant kind; ones always tip-toed around. But first it has to take stock of the underside of the current growth more ruthlessly than it has.

It is tempting to ask if the Congress leadership and the Government would have gone into a huddle over inflation and sluggish agriculture had the party won the recent Assembly elections in Punjab and Uttarakhand.
As policymakers of the best kind the country has had in recent times and the early advocates of reforms in the 1990s, both the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, are aware that a laggard agriculture, with a negative to 2 per cent growth coinciding with the term of office of the United Progressive Alliance Government, and the onslaught of inflation ought to be dealt with in the realm of economics; that the farm sector has trailed far behind as a result of systematic neglect, despite every Budget's homage through allocations, as successive governments toyed with the wonders of the telecom revolution and its easy-to-fit reforms in an economy devoid of any vested interests apart from MTNL. But they are politicians first and they are the leading lights of the party in power kept there by a coalition rife with tensions.

In the aftermath of the Assembly election defeats, the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, set the tone for the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister's subsequent policy rhetoric on agriculture and inflation, the constant reiteration of "inclusive growth" so as to "make a dent on poverty and unemployment... "

The language has the comforting resonance of a forty-year tradition of Congress rhetoric that seemed appropriate for the policies of "democratic socialism" but which has now become a faint echo of itself, a self-parody.

Presiding over or chief guest?

The UPA Government has presided over the fastest growth period in decades with almost every indicator breaking one record after another. It has not guided that growth through specific reforms or policies meant to shape the destinies of either the financial system or the organised sector unless you consider the relatively easy money policy. When it came to power mid-2004 the economy was already climbing at the rate of 7 per cent; interest rates were already at historic lows. Mr Chidambaram's first Budget acknowledged the reality of growth but failed to gauge its depth; or, which is more likely, refused to accept its potential. In July 2004, admitting "fundamentals were strong," the Finance Minister pronounced the outlook for the year as "benign." The accent was on the promises: Growth with stability and equity. And a negative legacy: Agriculture and industry with a modest aim of 7-8 per cent growth.

The second Budget, in February 2005, reflected the recognition that the UPA Government was presiding over an economy that had hit the deck running. The Government, he told Parliament, had inherited an economy that "we now know" had grown in 2003-04 at 8.5 per cent. The Finance Minister was, however, dismissive; he passed off his immediate predecessor as "a very lucky man" and focused on the negative legacy: A high inflation rate, dip in business confidence evident in a drop in investment and current account surplus. The forecast fiscal 2005, therefore, was a modest 6.9 per cent.

It was in February 2006 that the "reasons to celebrate" were enunciated; all through the earlier months data showed impressive GDP growth, beyond the modest expectations of 6.9 set by the CSO for the year. With an annualised 7.5 per cent GDP growth, the Government was taking the bow for having presided over an inflation-free economy that had carved its own trajectory back in 2003-04. The Government was simply the chief guest at a celebration that seemed never-ending.

For what did the Government do in concrete terms to get the economy to swing? Most of the reforms had already been put in place, many by those in power during the 1990s and some by those now in the Opposition.

After an initial hesitation, as the new millennium began, the economy started to respond to the changes with great alacrity. The UPA Government, specifically those in the key economic ministries of Finance, Commerce and the Prime Minister, not to mention the Planning Commission and the Reserve Bank of India, added one vital ingredient to the stew in the pot — an exuberance of expectations.

The key economic ministries and to an extent the Prime Minister himself adopted an aggressive language of growth, of wealth creation; the distributive aspects of that growth, so long the self-anointed mission of the party, was reserved for Budget speeches — till the Assembly elections brought the UPA face-to-face with the discrepancies in its discourse as heard by a nation cleft more than ever by wealth and the means ff acquiring it.

More than halfway through its term the UPA Government is still infatuated with its power to transmit positive vibrations. Till early this year it seemed to be in sync with the growth agents; every quarter the indices showed the economy cresting one wave after another; exports outpacing themselves, manufacturing excelling every three months, services and IT guiding India onto the world's centre-stage, forex reserves climbing unbelievably encouraging the RBI to get more liberal in the use of dollars by Indian companies and individuals, underwriting as it were, the capacity of Indian corporations for global acquisitions.

The transmission of aggressive growth signals is by no means an insignificant task. It helped transform global perceptions immensely. Five years ago, the tardy disinvestment and churlish coalition partners were considered deterrents to growth; today, one is a challenge and the other irrelevant for that surging self-confidence the organised economy transmits.

The Inflation Factor

In January this year inflation crossed the 6 per cent mark and, for the first time, the Budget speech reflected a nagging worry. But the rise in prices was evident all through the previous eight months, climbing inexorably from around four per cent despite monetary and fiscal measures to ease "supply constraints".

While the RBI measures to squeeze liquidity were mild, they may prove effective in ways that will harm credit offtake by those that need it most — the small enterprise and the homeless. The fiscal measures — chiefly, curbs on exports and freer imports — have so far failed to arrest the price rise though after repeated requests, cement and steel producers have agreed to maintain prices.

At the same time, neither the latest Budget nor the ones that preceded it have given any indication of how the moribund sectors will respond to all the largesse showered on them. The Budget for fiscal 2008 is not exceptional in its concern for the aam admi. Every provision in it was contained in the first one of 2004-05; all that the Finance Minister has done is to top up the allocations every year. But the problem is not money anymore; the thicket of regulations, multiple and arcane legislation, an illiquid land market and the unwillingness of the policymaker to cut through it are the main deterrent to growth.

Contracting expectations

Two years from general elections, and with some States due for polls this year and the next, the temptation to throw good money after bad on the schemes meant to generate inclusive growth may be difficult to resist. But resist the government must. For the first time in its present tenure, the dream team led by Dr Singh has the chance for a series of reforms of the most significant kind; ones always tip-toed around. But first it has to take stock of the underside of the current growth more ruthlessly than it has.

Both the infrastructure and farm sectors are in crisis; the country has lost the food security it had assiduously built up over the years, the cities are in a mess and things will get worse under the present pattern of growth that henceforth will be inflation-led.

Contracting its growth expectations is a good place to start. Preparing for a scaled growth of, say, seven per cent will not harm the poor that have seen little of it anyway. Putting in place an enabling environment for the two backward sectors will encourage investments — and create jobs and incomes — and make budgeted schemes more meaningful. Right now, they are just hollow intentions.

A govt gone wrong Under A Poor Administrator And A Worse Politician

Ravindra Kumar
The Statesman, 16 March

If nothing else, it ought to be evident to anyone with a modicum of sense that there is a conflict between the roles of the Home (Police) Minister of West Bengal on the one hand and the state’s Chief Minister and de facto Investments Minister on the other. It is Bengal’s tragedy that these functions have been vested in the same individual, and that one half of him is gullible enough to believe what the other says in public.

For in the process of wishing to go down as the man who charted the industrial rejuvenation of the state, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee faces the very real risk of being remembered as a poor administrator and a worse politician. And driving him on this road to disaster are sycophants, a bunch of self-serving bureaucrats and a couple of media owners masquerading as journalists who are as capable of supporting him as they are of turning tail if their commercial interests so compel them.

Greatest failure

Mr Bhattacharjee’s failure is not just that he was incapable of anticipating the resistance to his grand schemes. His greatest failure lies in not recognizing that the leader in a democratic set-up must at all times carry people with him. The Chief Minister seems to believe, as did Rajiv Gandhi after his 1984 triumph, that an emphatic electoral endorsement is a five-year licence to do what he wishes.

Mr Bhattacharjee’s fall from grace has been dramatic. Eight months ago, who could have thought that so many people would oppose what he wants to do, some to the extent of seeing in the actions of his police echoes of Jallianwala Bagh? Who would have thought that an old Marxist like Justice Krishna Iyer would be castigating, absolutely rubbishing the policies of a Marxist government? Who would have thought that the CPI-M would face so much opposition to its programmes from its own allies, to the extent that some of them would even think about calibrating their support? Or that significant numbers of the state’s Muslims, hitherto considered a safe vote bank, would actually resist a Marxist administration in the manner that they have?

These ought not just to be questions we are asking; these are questions that Mr Bhattacharjee and his supporters ought to be asking themselves, for there is a clear disconnect between the mandate that the Left Front received in the last election, and the manner in which it has been conducting itself since; between the promise of progress and the almost constant presence of roadblocks. So where lies the problem? Is it that the Chief Minister and some of his comrades in the party are arrogant? Or are they inefficient?

It cannot only be that, because West Bengal today is an amalgam of paradoxes and Mr Bhattacharjee’s bull-headedness alone cannot explain all that has gone wrong. There can be little argument with the fact that Mr Bhattacharjee is well intentioned; that he would like to see the state as a better place.

There can similarly be no argument with the fact that a major contribution to such betterment can come from investment in industry, creation of jobs, and thus of wealth. So where is this Government going wrong?

The evidence suggests that West Bengal is being inefficiently administered in that it is not, first, anticipating problems; second, not dealing with them transparently, and, third, not intervening until the problem has become much, much bigger than it ever need have been. Further, it would appear that the failure has been as much political as it has been administrative.

From the beginning, Mr Bhattacharjee has been less than forthcoming in divulging details of his deals with the Tatas and the Salims. He must be utterly naïve if he believes that in a democracy, where at least some elements in the Press are free of his control and of their own predilections, such matters could stay secret for ever. Worse, his administration has been hopelessly ham-handed, even dishonest in dealing with crises. The rape and killing of a girl in Singur was brushed under the carpet; the suicide of a farmer was described as the outcome of family squabbles; the first wave in killings in Nandigram were attributed to Muslim fundamentalists, and the police action this week is sought to be justified as a necessary consequence of the administration imposing its will on the people.

In the midst of all this, there has not been one gesture of humility, not one show of spontaneous humanitarian concern for those who died, not one piece of evidence to suggest that Mr Bhattacharjee is capable of owning up to a mistake. On the contrary, there have been stories and comments planted in friendly newspapers to suggest that the resistance is not so much an expression of popular will as it is an orchestrated campaign of parties on the Right and the Left to halt industrial progress.

Aiding and abetting the Chief Minister in his mindless march towards such industrialization is a Prime Minister who loses no opportunity to praise him to the skies and industrialists who camouflage their own greed for cheap land with pious pronouncements on progress. While they are each pursuing their own agenda, they cannot be blamed as much as the man who believes them.

Singur and Nandigram have been as much administrative failures as they have been political ones. We have no evidence of senior IAS or IPS officers, who ought to have had an ear to the ground, warning government of the intensity of reaction, or of having done so loud enough to have been heard. On the contrary, there is evidence that the bureaucracy, which has over the years abrogated many of its responsibilities to the party cadre, thought there would be little or no opposition, at least none that the party wouldn’t be able to deal with.

More naiveté is in evidence in Mr Bhattacharjee’s treatment of political problems. Many of his allies in the Left Front have viewed his policies and his style of functioning with circumspection. A wiser man would have attempted to convince them, or allowed himself to be convinced, before embarking on actions that pose a threat to all of them. There is, too, the question of ideological conflict for, as a veteran Communist MP told this writer, “not only are we expected to oppose policies in Delhi that our government in Kolkata is endorsing, we are being asked to accept that everything that we believed for so long is somehow wrong.” And worst of all, “we are being forced to cite the endorsement of a Prime Minister whose policies we believe are being drafted in Washington in support of our own Chief Minister.”

Introspection

If Mr Bhattacharjee is capable of introspection, of submerging the evil of arrogance to the extent of realistically assessing his own political position, he must do so, if only to ensure that the good there is in him gets a fair chance. The bureaucracy, too, needs to introspect before it blindly obeys orders. The Chief Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Director-General of Police must possess the moral courage to warn the Chief Minister of his foolhardiness.

And finally, the Left Front needs to introspect. Parties that claim to be driven by socialist ideals, that claim to reflect the will of the people, cannot turn ideology on its head as abruptly as the CPI-M is attempting to do. Similarly, parties that believe in devolution of powers cannot concentrate so much power in one man. At the very least Mr Bhattacharjee must be restrained; there are liberties at risk. Our liberties. There are lives at risk. Our lives. An undisclosed number of people of Nandigram would, if they were alive to do so, tell us just how great the risk is. Once details of this week’s tragedy unfold, we will know if the Chief Minister has a moral right to continue in office. But if he is to survive, his Home (Police) Minister must, at the very least, be sacked.

(The author is Editor, The Statesman)

Brand Blood

The Statesman, 16 March

Tata deal truths from Nirupam’s mouth

At a time when the state government is under fire for the Nandigram fiasco, it was business as usual on the Singur front. State industry minister Mr Nirupam Sen today announced that Tata Motors would get a Rs 200-crore loan at a rate of one per cent interest from the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation for its small-car plant. He said no money was being spent from government exchequer but the WBIDC would take a loan from the market to extend this loan to the Tatas! The information was a part of the disclosure on the incentive package for Tata Motors made by Mr Sen in the Assembly. He said the government had offered incentives on land, a soft term loan and refund of VAT for the first 10 years of a 90-year lease. “We have acquired 997.11 acres of land of which 645.47 acres, on a 90-year lease, has been handed over to Tata Motors for setting up a small-car unit. The remaining 290 acres has been earmarked for an ancillary unit or vendor park,’’ Mr Sen said. “Out of the 645.47 acres, the state government would take up-front payment for only 290 acres. In addition, the Tatas would have to pay a yearly rent at the rate of Rs 8,000 per acre for 290 acres.’’ The minister explained Tata Motors will pay Rs 1 crore annually by way of lease rent for the first five years. Thereafter, for every five years, there will be a 25 per cent hike in the lease rent for the next 30 years. From the thirty-first year to the sixtieth year, there will be a 30 per cent hike in the lease rent every 10 years and from the sixty-first year to the ninetieth year, the Tatas will pay at an annual flat rate of Rs 20 crore. The comprehensive lease rent for 90 years will thus come to nearly Rs 850 crore, he said. The incentives had been offered to counter concessions offered by other states.

Editorial

Severest setback for a Panglossian agenda Bengal was quite totally stunned on Wednesday when no fewer than 14 farmers fell to police bullets at Nandigram. The Chief Minister ~ the faux pas of reaching the Assembly minutes after it was adjourned was, in the context, a relatively minor loss of face ~ must readily acknowledge that the farmers wouldn’t have died if the police hadn’t been used to defend the established order. That order has now suffered the severest setback in its 30 years in the pursuit of a Panglossian agenda. The armed offensive against peasants intent on protecting their source of livelihood was carried out with a calculated ruthlessness that was seemingly more brutal than the firing on refugees at Marichjhanpi (1978), against the Gorkhaland agitators (1986) and against Mamata’s rally at Esplanade (1993). It confirms this newspaper’s misgivings ~ for all the saccharine assurances of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee that the SEZ project had been kept in abeyance and could even be shifted in deference to popular will, the government was indeed inching towards an undeclared change in policy. There was no compelling hurry to enter Nandigram at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. It was a deliberate testing of the murky waters just when the frenzy, at once agricultural and communal, appeared to have subsided. This was all too evident in his studied silence when Nandigram was once again put on the melting pot by his closest aide and industries minister, Nirupam Sen, and the Salim Group’s point man, Prasun Mukherjee. The recipe for disaster was scripted a fortnight ago as both pitched in vigorously for a chemical hub on the same site. The enormity of the tragedy is a horrendous blight in the march towards high-voltage economic development, and the policy is now open to question as never before. If January’s bloodletting and arson was the fallout of the fiasco over a land acquisition notice, this week’s outrage points to a decidedly more sinister plan to counter the odds. The government has suffered what may turn out to be a crippling setback and not merely in terms industrial. Next year’s panchayat election will be the toughest contest for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) after 30 years in power. The risk of losing the Muslim vote ~ and thereby rocking the panchayat boat ~ ever so crucial in effecting a psephological swing, is substantial primarily because they constitute 50 per cent of Nandigram’s peasantry. The panchayat stakes are of critical moment for the future of the government and in the wider context of the Left movement in India. An economic module on a blood-splattered tract of fertile land will be the darkest chapter in Bengal’s contemporary history. There is time yet to reverse gears and literally so in another part of South Bengal as well. The historic blunder will be more profound than not joining the national government.

Shame, CPI(M): Find politics for industrialisation

Editorial
Economic Times, 16 March

We condemn the brutal killing of 12 people by the police in Nandigram. The incident highlights political failure in West Bengal — both state inability to engage the people in a dialogue and an aptitude for violent coercion against dissenters on the part of the CPI (M). It also highlights the urgency of evolving a democratic method of transforming traditional habitats and occupations for the purpose of setting up modern industry. Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is right to proclaim his determination to go ahead with the Tata car project at Singur. But it would be a gross mistake for him to close his eyes to the political culture his party has wrought in West Bengal that seeks resolution of disputes by force and violence. How does he account for CPM activists sealing off all access points along a 30-km radius around Nandigram, even as the police carried out the bloodbath? That clashes over ‘acquisition of land’ for the proposed SEZ have occurred in spite of the chief minister announcing the withdrawal of the land acquisition notification and offering to shift the project elsewhere if Nandigram did not want it is, indeed, galling. For the CPM cadre, which has worked on the principle of ‘occupying’ and ‘holding on’ to areas, retreat is never an option. It sees the LF government’s amenability to popular demands as an erosion of its influence and prestige. The party has been sustaining its cadre network by dispensing patronage. This is yet another reason why the CPM cadre finds it difficult, as it has in Nandigram, to yield to popular pressure, and give up its forcible control over areas in the state. An all-pervasive political culture of coercive violence, which precludes any attempt to evolve consensus through dialogue, has been its inevitable result. The government’s failure to engage the Nandigram protestors in negotiations, and its decision to send a 5,000-strong police force to deal with them, as if they were occupier-enemies, are symptoms of this crisis of democratic politics. In fact, that is precisely why the question of development in West Bengal has come to be posed as an opposition, between agriculture and industry, and not in more inclusive terms of sustainable income growth and full employment.

Bengal bandh turns violent

Agencies
16 March

Kolkata, Mar 16: A 12-hour state-wide bandh, called by the Trinamool Congress, is being observed in West Bengal to protest Wednesday's police action in Nandigram. The protestors torched 16 buses in the state.

Within hours of the bandh protestors torched eight state government buses disrupting road and rail traffic across West Bengal.

Train services in both Howrah and Sealdah divisions were also hit due to picketing at various stations. Squatters blocked tracks at Uttarpara, Rishra, Serampore, Rampurhat and other stations in Howrah division.

Most of the long distance trains were stranded at different stations due to picketing, officials said. However, about a dozen flights belonging to different airlines took off for their destinations on Friday morning.

In Nandigram in East Midnapore district, tension prevailed in the villages two days after the police firing that killed 14 persons.

Trinamool Congress workers blocked Chandipur-Nandigram road with logs and boulders. Blockades were also reported from Mechada, Nandakumar and Tamluk areas of the district.

However, strong police pickets were found in some areas of Nandigram.
The bandh, which is expected to hit normal life, has severely affected students as the state Board and ICSE exams have been postponed.

However, the government has assured that it will take appropriate steps to maintain normalcy in the state.

Meanwhile, security has been stepped up across the state. The CISF, entrusted with the security of the operation area at the NSC Bose International Airport, has augmented its deployment further in view of the bandh call, airport sources said.

Fresh violence rocked Nandigram village on Thursday as police fired in the air and lobbed tear gas shells on relatives at a hospital where those injured in Wednesday's firing are being treated.

The police action started virtually minutes after West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee called Wednesday's violence unfortunate in the state Assembly.

Protestors also set fire to a government office, shortly after Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Bannerjee alleged being hit by a stone while on her way to areas affected by violence.

Meanwhile, Calcutta High Court in a suo motu action has ordered a CBI inquiry into the police firing that claimed 14 lives in Nandigram.

The West Bengal government on Friday said that all Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in the state have been put on hold until a 'socially balanced' decision was taken in this regard.

Finance Minister Ashim Dasgupta, presenting the state Budget for 2007-08 in the Assembly, said that there was a necessity to take steps for setting up large industries in consultation with people with a necessary balance of agriculture and payment of compensation for land acquired for projects.

With regard to SEZs, he said until a socially balanced decision was taken at the national level, the state government would not take any initiative in the matter.

The state government's move came only two days after a major flare-up of violence at Nandigram in East Midnapore district, where 14 people died after police opened fire on people opposed to the acquisition of their land for a proposed SEZ.