Singur: now for the talks
With the Trinamool leader calling off her hunger strike, the spotlight will turn to the proposed dialogue between her and the West Bengal Government.
Marcus Dam
The Hindu, 30 December
NOW THAT the curtains have finally come down on the 25-day-old hunger strike by Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, hopes have been rekindled for a dialogue between her and the West Bengal Government over the acquisition of land for the proposed car-manufacturing project at Singur in Hooghly district.
There is no denying that in the course of her fast Ms. Banerjee had started to find herself cornered. That she knew her movement against the alleged forcible acquisition of farmland for the Singur project was running out of steam was apparent in her flitting from one demand to another. She was under growing pressure from a section of her own party, which was increasingly convinced that the only dignified way out of a difficult situation was to accept the repeated offers for talks from the State Government.
And there were questions being raised whether Ms. Banerjee was losing control over the campaign she initiated under the banner of the Krishi Jami Raksha (Save Farmland) Committee. Some of its 19 constituents, including those belonging to different Naxalite factions, began getting quietly assertive in determining the agenda.
The question now is: what could have led Ms. Banerjee to comply with a second request from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call off the hunger strike? She had flatly turned down the first appeal less than a week ago. Could it have been that it was preceded by a letter from Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee whose undertones were conciliatory without being compromising?
It was the Chief Minister's fourth letter and by the time it reached her, could Ms. Banerjee have realised the futility of fending off invitations for dialogue, all the while hoping to extract some concession from an administration firm on seeing the Tata Motors project through? Had not the wind already been taken out of the sails of a campaign built anyway on dubious contentions?
In a round-about way, the State Government, anxious as it was over Ms. Banerjee's deteriorating health, could well be grateful to her for having provoked the corporate sector into endorsing the Government's plans for industrial resurgence despite the Trinamool's rather obstructionist ways.
What must have come as a shot in the arm for the Government was the remark of Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group, in an interview to a television channel, that he was "... unfortunately a person who has often said, you put a gun to my head and pull the trigger or take the gun away, I won't move my head."
His complimenting the leadership of the present State Government, whose Chief Minister has been reiterating that there will be "no going back" on the Singur project, could not have come across as particularly agreeable to Ms. Banerjee. She had, at the beginning of her campaign, threatened "a blood-bath across the State" if the proposed project was not shifted elsewhere. She appears to have hastily retreated from that stand as well as that of calling for a total boycott of all products manufactured by the Tata group of companies, at least for now.
Whether Ms. Banerjee has been successful in elevating the Singur issue to the national plane where she had hoped to mobilise opinion against the project is another imponderable. She has, so far, been able to get the National Democratic Alliance, of which her party is a constituent, to take up the cause on her behalf and hint at a nation-wide campaign against farmland acquisition for the project. This despite the fact that by endearing itself to her the Bharatiya Janata Party hopes to set up some base in a State where its influence is at best marginal. This has cost Ms. Banerjee a potential political ally in the Congress — which has distanced itself from her since the hunger strike began. There had been talk of their joining forces to see them through till the next major elections, well after the first automobile is scheduled to roll out of the Tata Motors factory at Singur less than two years from now.
For the present, the State Government will be waiting for Ms. Banerjee to bring her arguments on the land acquisition process at Singur to the discussion table for "appropriate action," as the Chief Minister's most recent letter to her puts it. The dismantling of the manch, which the Trinamool leader had made her home for the past 25 days, has already begun.
Marcus Dam
The Hindu, 30 December
NOW THAT the curtains have finally come down on the 25-day-old hunger strike by Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, hopes have been rekindled for a dialogue between her and the West Bengal Government over the acquisition of land for the proposed car-manufacturing project at Singur in Hooghly district.
There is no denying that in the course of her fast Ms. Banerjee had started to find herself cornered. That she knew her movement against the alleged forcible acquisition of farmland for the Singur project was running out of steam was apparent in her flitting from one demand to another. She was under growing pressure from a section of her own party, which was increasingly convinced that the only dignified way out of a difficult situation was to accept the repeated offers for talks from the State Government.
And there were questions being raised whether Ms. Banerjee was losing control over the campaign she initiated under the banner of the Krishi Jami Raksha (Save Farmland) Committee. Some of its 19 constituents, including those belonging to different Naxalite factions, began getting quietly assertive in determining the agenda.
The question now is: what could have led Ms. Banerjee to comply with a second request from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call off the hunger strike? She had flatly turned down the first appeal less than a week ago. Could it have been that it was preceded by a letter from Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee whose undertones were conciliatory without being compromising?
It was the Chief Minister's fourth letter and by the time it reached her, could Ms. Banerjee have realised the futility of fending off invitations for dialogue, all the while hoping to extract some concession from an administration firm on seeing the Tata Motors project through? Had not the wind already been taken out of the sails of a campaign built anyway on dubious contentions?
In a round-about way, the State Government, anxious as it was over Ms. Banerjee's deteriorating health, could well be grateful to her for having provoked the corporate sector into endorsing the Government's plans for industrial resurgence despite the Trinamool's rather obstructionist ways.
What must have come as a shot in the arm for the Government was the remark of Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group, in an interview to a television channel, that he was "... unfortunately a person who has often said, you put a gun to my head and pull the trigger or take the gun away, I won't move my head."
His complimenting the leadership of the present State Government, whose Chief Minister has been reiterating that there will be "no going back" on the Singur project, could not have come across as particularly agreeable to Ms. Banerjee. She had, at the beginning of her campaign, threatened "a blood-bath across the State" if the proposed project was not shifted elsewhere. She appears to have hastily retreated from that stand as well as that of calling for a total boycott of all products manufactured by the Tata group of companies, at least for now.
Whether Ms. Banerjee has been successful in elevating the Singur issue to the national plane where she had hoped to mobilise opinion against the project is another imponderable. She has, so far, been able to get the National Democratic Alliance, of which her party is a constituent, to take up the cause on her behalf and hint at a nation-wide campaign against farmland acquisition for the project. This despite the fact that by endearing itself to her the Bharatiya Janata Party hopes to set up some base in a State where its influence is at best marginal. This has cost Ms. Banerjee a potential political ally in the Congress — which has distanced itself from her since the hunger strike began. There had been talk of their joining forces to see them through till the next major elections, well after the first automobile is scheduled to roll out of the Tata Motors factory at Singur less than two years from now.
For the present, the State Government will be waiting for Ms. Banerjee to bring her arguments on the land acquisition process at Singur to the discussion table for "appropriate action," as the Chief Minister's most recent letter to her puts it. The dismantling of the manch, which the Trinamool leader had made her home for the past 25 days, has already begun.
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