Recent developments in Tata Motors's Nano project at Singur

Nobel laureate, Prof. Amartya Sen speaking recently in a function at Kolkata, has expressed his dismay over the recent developments in Singur, the small car project of Tata Motors:

Industrialization is a must for development......It can't be attained only by agriculture. You will not be able to show me one developed country that has reached there focusing solely on agriculture. If the Tata factory can't come up in Singur it will be bad news for West Bengal's development. Concerned parties should try to resolve the matter through talks.

There are valid reasons for Prof. Sen to be worried. Mamata Banerjee is again back in business. After her euphoric performance in the Panchayat polls, she and her party has now publicly vowed to disrupt the small car project of Tata by all means. Mamata Banerjee's enthusiastic party workers has started to force out the workers and employees coming to work at the Nano plant in Singur. They are on their job to build-up an fitting ground for their beloved ‘Mamatadidi' who had announced to join them from 24th August for an indefinite ‘peaceful' dharna at the factory site. Her word in fact is a stringent warning that she with her party workers are on their way to confiscate the ongoing project. Her demand: the state government (read CPIM) must "return 400 acres of land forcibly acquired from unwilling poor farmers".

At present, the gory Trinamool party workers are ground preparing for the ‘peaceful' dharna in the following sequential order:

1. Posters are spread all around the Tata Motors plant locale by the workers of Trinamool backed Save Farmland Committee (BUPC) warning dire consequences to the workers and employees who had come from outside to work at the factory site and diktat them to leave Singur immediately,

2. BUPC men blew up crude bombs at Singur railway station,

3. Bombs are thrown at Mainak Lodge, a temporary residence of some workers of Tata Motors,

4. BUPC men stopped a trekker carrying workers to the factory site, slapped the passengers, and ordered them to leave,

5. Verbal abuse were hurled at Tata Motors workers; some are beaten up when they went to the local bazaars to buy stuff to cook meals,

6. An engineer Manish Khatua, working at the Tata Motors project site was assaulted by BUPC men and later hospitalized. Convener of BUPC, Becharam Manna, was elated to assert that beating up the engineer was a good job done.

Terrified workers fearing their life have started to leave Singur for safer homes. As per local media reports, there were less attendance registered at the plant site after the incidences. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, the local Trinamul Congress MLA affirmed, "Many workers have left the small-car project site. We will drive away the rest."

The fervent local media, which till the panchayat polls had adequately pinched and poked fun at the Bengal government's industrial drive and have creditably manufactured the anti-people, autocratic image of the CPM, suddenly become extremely concerned about the state's industrial future. Worried, they rushed for a comment from Tata Motors. Tata Motors finally responded. Managing Director Ravi Kant referring to the incidents remarked, "We will continue as long as our patience lasts" and "Ultimately, the people of Bengal have to decide whether they want industrialisation." Works in the small car project at Singur was moving ahead fast and the production was expected to start within two more months of time. The anxiety of Tata Motors is comprehensible but the media's overdrive is suspicious.