Whats this Singur Trouble? Where is it leading to?
Is it a political parochial optimism or a political failure or merely a fiasco to gain public support at political level to obtain vote ?
Is it an obstruction for Industrial Growth or a compromise to overlook and promote Industrial Imperialism?
Is it Farmers' Malaise or Farmers' Second Chance ?
What about the interests of Industrial Workers?
Is anyone selfless in this project?
No, not the industrial class,not the politburo, not even the farmers, and certainly not the industrial workers. everyone has to live and preserve their interests. The Govt. has to protect its seat. The Opposition has to gain public support. The industrial tycoons have to reap value for their investments. Farmers need land to cultivate and feed their families. Industrial workers need industry and employers to give them work for their survival.
RATAN TATA, CHAIRMAN of TATA MOTORS LIMITED wants to execute his much talked about nano project and sell each car within the economic yardstick of INR 100,000($2500) while SHINZO NAKANISHI, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF MARUTI SUZUKI INDIA LTD quoted "We cannot make a cheaper car. We don't know how to make a 1-lakh car unless we sacrifice something". Then how come Tata make such a car? Has he solved a car-for-all puzzle by his engineering and marketing experts? Or Are there other reasons? Cacophonous dark reasons bellowing amidst the euphonious applause for his achievement. Are the forceful, as it is said, acquisition of farmer's land in Singur that lead Tata to acquire a vast sprawling area at a petty price and the availability of cheap labour in a industrialization-starved west Bengal responsible to cut the cost by large margins and thus project this project as an engineering marvel ? Is this the way to set up an industrial plant in India in the 21st century? To just come and start scraping off well established villages and their fields to set up your own? How is it different from the scenario of 15th century when Britishers started building their companies and subsequently empire in India at the cost of Indian's property? Or can we delude ourselves that the fixed costs of land and that the labour charges don't really matter, cos the equipments chosen are economically designed for mass production?
Rightly said,"Looks can be deceptive". THIS SEMBLANCE OF TATA MOTORS IS TRUELY DECEPTIVE.
Cos now as the location will change, Tata's economic yard will be shaken completely, even if they shift to their existing plants. as JAGDISH KHATTAR, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR, MARUTI SUZUKI quoted "It will be a success if they deliver what they promised." So nano is not going to be people's car, it wd be just another car in the market at maruti 800 scale.had the poor farmers stayed mum, then the Tata's project could have been completed as per the schedule that is in oct and as per famous economic yardstick but at the cost of the nation's wealth after exploiting 15,000 farmers and hundreds of industrial workers. Yes middle class peoples' favourite and much awaited car could hav reached their threshold by nov,2008 but by wiping out singur farmers without any trace.
Yes even Mukesh Ambani and other industrialists hav supported Tata's Singur Project but these people belong to the same imperialistic community as Tata's,i.e, industrial bandwagon. So why wouldn's they like to suppress the voice of the poor and destitutes when they all hav future plans to annex more of such lands. this is how industrialization is taking place in India.
Politically,the opposition,trinamool congress's Mamta Banerji has become a nanny of the farmers cradeling the farmers' interests well by bargaining 200-400 land area from the land earmarked for nano project.
Others such as the leaders of the ruling party are fearing the loss of investment 'interests' in West Bengal. Whats this interest? The same as discussed before? What about the mute people and their lands?
Tata bosses are not taking part in the discussions, arguing the crisis is political and they have no role in it.
The way the State Govt. is handling the problem is pathetic. they want to save Industrial Tycoon Tata's interest and investments and proudly project West Bengal as an industrialized state that not only safeguards the capitalists' interests but also gives them ample opportunities to flourish their business besides snatching land from the poor farmers. All these are clearly the efforts to lure more and more investors in West Bengal. Their mindset is so parochial that they have turned blind to the widening gap between the vast lower class sections and a minority of upper & influential class.
Instead of developing the indigenous agricultural industry to save the farmers as well as the industrial workers by setting up small industries to manufacture advanced agricultural equipments;thereby giving later jobs and former aid to develop the agricultural processes better yields, infact surplus enough to be exported to other countries, the State Govt. is incinerating agriculture to flourish other industries and causing the holocaust of farmers and the underpaid industrial workers.
The State Govt. in West Bengal is still wet behind the ears. Its time that the Center intervened and took the matter in its hands. Why cant this be done? What is this Center for? Why is it not helping to solve the matter fully? Why is it not even probing into the matter? Is the State Opposition Party in West Bengal too strong and intelligent to drive the slumbering lax intellect of the ruling party?
This should be a national matter of utmost importance.
Center should first of all find everything about Tata's investment in Singur, how much money each farmer is getting, to find out the root cause and come up with solutions:
If the farmers are at fault, that is, at first they considered the selling of their lands in lieu of 'ample' amount of money to compensate for destroying their indigenous agricultural industry, i.e., not only covering the absolute value of their properties but also the project future agricultural productivity profits in the coming 10 year, lucrative, and sold off their livelihood but later on they created hue and cry to get their lands back on account of false exploitation charges against Tata to gain double profit. In this scenario farmers should be punished for their avarice.
If the farmers were willing to sell their fields at the 'ample price' but got less or negligible amount, then they should be paid to suffice else all the fields should be returned back to the farmers without rolling back Tata's investment in Singur, this will serve as his penalty.
If the farmers were not willing to sell off their agricultural industry, they must be given back every acre of their land's and heavy penalty should be levied on Tata for committing this unforgivable crime knowingly. This money should be distributed to all the farmers and the industrial workers whose work would be lost as a compensation for their relentless agony and humiliation.
This way, justice should be done to the inocent farmers. This should serve as a lesson to every industrialist in the world and a grave warning for those in India.
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14 comments:
So you do believe in God, then
i thought u wd never read my post again!
though i have a huge faith in god but the gist is u want to suggest me to pray to god and wait for the +ve results,as explained by me in the post,to come?
if this is not the case, what else do u mean? esoteric...
yeah almost that.
i would be sure if i knew what i meant.
watch 'no country for old men' actually
the god's not coming.
oh and the results you mentioned don't seem all that positive to me.
i never said in my post that i m waiting for the god to take an avatar and come down to earth to solve our problems, only because i am one of those who would pray to god daily for the well being of their families but plan and execute their entire work themselves with conviction;not with prayers and offerings to the god and wishing the work would be done by some angel or miracle.
the reason for posting here is to express my ideas, not chanting prayers secretly so as to be heard by god.
further,i voted for center to come cos, when central govt. is there, it should not let the states go astray, just like the scenario in Maharashtra(raj thakare of opposition), Jammu & Kashmir's secession issue, Bihar's flood and now this West Bengal issue it should bind the country altogether. center is busy with its 'little game',123 agreement, has gone in the oblivion in its last ruling days and therefore needs to be woken up.
Industry (including agricultural) can be boosted by improving agricultural practices also. earlier some 51 % of land in India was under agriculture, now only 44% only due to increasing industrialization at the expense of land allotted for agricultural purpose, that too without adequate compensation. the reason India is not developed is the concentration of wealth in a few hands, therefore although we have people amongst FORBES' Asian Businessman of the Year, Time magazine's 2008 list of influential people and also the richest people in the world in this country but our major population >50% is still living under poverty line[ according to new poverty line definition as per PPP].
"If you want to be rich, agriculture is the business to be in. The best way to invest in India is in commodities, because if India is going to grow, then one should invest in things which India has to have for this growth." quoted by famous glober investor Jim Rogers.
But this cant be achieved until and unless we fully give farmers their dues.
its like some technologically strong and financially advanced country like america coming to india to buy delhi, and takes up all our houses by paying money to the govt., and the govet, takes up our houses by force without the actual money for our property and well established trades. Then america offers us to be the work force in american organisation at any pay-grade as they decide. and we people act like mute ones; we give away our property, our profession, our lives in delhi as we were leading and decide either to leave delhi for good or have consensus with the american offer. u saw the ratio, of one country america's interest+interest of a super gullible indian govt's vision to internationalize & super industrialize delhi to population of delhi(13,782,976 as per the provisional results of the Census of India 2001) let loose at the mercy of god! in such case India can forget to be developed anytime in the future.
something similar happened with 15,000 farmers in Singur, and such overtaking of agricultural lands in India is rampant these days .
"i never said in my post that i m waiting for the god to take an avatar and come down to earth to solve our problems, only because i am one of those who would pray to god daily for the well being of their families but plan and execute their entire work themselves with conviction;not with prayers and offerings to the god and wishing the work would be done by some angel or miracle. "
angel, miracle, righteous men, saviours of humanity central govt, supposed-to-be-working-for-the-nation politicians, all the same.
can't depend on them
"the reason for posting here is to express my ideas, not chanting prayers secretly so as to be heard by god."
and i admire you more than you believe i can for this expression. and feel guilty of smearing it with my "pessimist" and "non-tempo" comments.
"further,i voted for center to come cos, when central govt. is there, it should not let the states go astray, just like the scenario in Maharashtra(raj thakare of opposition), Jammu & Kashmir's secession issue, Bihar's flood and now this West Bengal issue it should bind the country altogether. center is busy with its 'little game',123 agreement, has gone in the oblivion in its last ruling days and therefore needs to be woken up."
one by one,
ONE - when bachchan's were in danger of public outrage (read MNS party workers' outrage, read a restless Raj Thackeray's immature shots at doing what Advani did on a national level in 1992), Sonia Gandhi (read Centre) intervened appropriately timely. Raj Thackeray is a political leader with sufficient following that you can't put him behind bars for long (though he was arrested for a day). There is not much the Centre/God/Superman can do to tape his mouth. The state, though, needs to protect civilians from his personal outrages and whims, which it is. Problems like this man will fizzle out when Indian Politics matures, which will take time.
TWO - Jammu Kashmir has been a national issue for so long that we shouldn't assume that its because of some political leader's personal interests or any other such frivolous cause. It is a genuine hard to solve problem simply because of the sheer hugeness of the issue (land, people, politics, religion, jihad, two nations' geographical boundary, patriotic sentiments, and way more than that). It is not something that can be corrected by a snap of the fingers. The world at large is trying to find a solution to this, and it will come when it comes. You are contributing too, by writing about it in a blog, by generating public opinion that it is a problem that needs solving. I appreciate that.
THREE - Bihar's floods are a natural calamity. A sum of Rs 10 billion has been issued from national funds for the same. People have contributed as they could in droves. There are problems, like leakage of relief funds midway, like no mechanisms already in place to tackle such a situation, etc. But those problems have different reasons for their existence. Maybe the situation will improve now that the state administration has been woken up from its slumber.
FOUR - 123 agreement controversy exists because George W Bush is an asshole. Atleast from our context, that is. Any which way, India (the Centre), instead of waiting indefinitely for US Congress's approval, will anyway sign a nuclear deal with France. If the 123 agreement is compromised, the Indian Government even retains the option not to sign it.
Concluding, the centre is not all busy playing any 'little games', turning a blind eye to the people of India. The games are pretty large by any standard, and they need to be played. And its not like they are dictators or anything, we voted them. So whatever I feel bad about, I really find it hard to push the blame to anyone but myself.
"Industry (including agricultural) can be boosted by improving agricultural practices also. earlier some 51 % of land in India was under agriculture, now only 44% only due to increasing industrialization at the expense of land allotted for agricultural purpose, that too without adequate compensation. "
Industrialization, in my opinion, is, in general, a good thing. Don't blemish the whole of industrialization because of stray incidents or events. We will have both, industries and agriculture. What I really want to see actually, is Industrialization even in agriculture. Which means a more professional, technological/knowledge driven, large scale approach to agriculture. 'Advanced Agriculture', if you may.
And as for industrialization, agriculture alone cannot bear the burden of the kind of population we have. Agricultural income is not enough to support a whole nation. Cultivated Land will go down as low (or as high) as it needs to owing to supply and demand.
"the reason India is not developed is the concentration of wealth in a few hands, therefore although we have people amongst FORBES' Asian Businessman of the Year, Time magazine's 2008 list of influential people and also the richest people in the world in this country but our major population >50% is still living under poverty line[ according to new poverty line definition as per PPP]. "
that's a naive statement, at best. the economic disparity is rather SUPPOSED to grow during a nation's early phase of economic modernization. It's called the Kuznets Curve.
And globalization, if for nothing else, is good for one thing. It reduces the economic disparity between the poor of rich nations and those of poor ones. Our nation has a growing middle class, along with and increase in their average income. More and more people in this country are earning more and more everyday. The few on the top are sure earning a lot, but the good thing is that they are generating a higher income for those lower on the scale too.
" "If you want to be rich, agriculture is the business to be in. The best way to invest in India is in commodities, because if India is going to grow, then one should invest in things which India has to have for this growth." quoted by famous glober investor Jim Rogers."
Yes. He is being bullish over India's growth. Which has come about not because of Agriculture at all. Which does not mean lets run away from agriculture. It means that agriculture too will benefit from this new found growth in our economy. Agriculture will have to grow to keep pace with the modernization of our lifestyle. Jim Rogers is not advising us to start cultivating more and better than before, he is only happy that we're anyway going to do so.
"But this cant be achieved until and unless we fully give farmers their dues. "
it will require more than that. it will require education and penetration of technology into agriculture. it will require farming on large consolidated lands. it will require part-mechanisation of the process.
You are connecting the growth of Agriculture of the whole nation with a small town's unfortunate events.
"its like some technologically strong and financially advanced country like america coming to india to buy delhi, and takes up all our houses by paying money to the govt., and the govet, takes up our houses by force without the actual money for our property and well established trades. Then america offers us to be the work force in american organisation at any pay-grade as they decide. and we people act like mute ones; we give away our property, our profession, our lives in delhi as we were leading and decide either to leave delhi for good or have consensus with the american offer. u saw the ratio, of one country america's interest+interest of a super gullible indian govt's vision to internationalize & super industrialize delhi to population of delhi(13,782,976 as per the provisional results of the Census of India 2001) let loose at the mercy of god! in such case India can forget to be developed anytime in the future.
something similar happened with 15,000 farmers in Singur, and such overtaking of agricultural lands in India is rampant these days . "
it is not rampant. by any stretch of imagination. you are copy pasting the problems of an area onto a whole nation and imagining the consequences. its called sensationalism.
Look even i know center is right now good for nothing, but it has the power of consolidating the entire country thats what i meant.
look, i m least concerned with the intellect of manmohan-sonia govt.,i know they hav a plenty of underutilized potential of nation building and right now they r either busy playing blame games and the 'little games'.
state govts. sometimes think they are autonomous, therefore, take unwise decisions on account of parochial mindset. i dont want the center to tape his mouth or arrest him, i want people of maharashtra to realise they r under one common shelter of India's and this language issue doesnt mean anything, is not worth giving slightest thought of indignation + useless politicos like Raj Thackeray's desperate attempts to engender hue and cry shd be ignored in general and condemned when they transgress.
i said these 123 deals and all, as little plays and games, cos the center is not addressing the other more important issues which demand their attention thru and thru. manmohan singh even deferred the issue of serial bomb blasts taking place throughout india to be discussed after nepal's pm wd be thru with his visit to india.
cant u see they are taking the nationals for granted and adulating the international superheroes. the center thinks that by submitting itself to this deal, it can save its seats. its all parochial, going in for one and the sole aim-to preserve their govt, to preserve their seats, to preserve their interests. i m not saying that they shd not preserve their seats, i m saying that if they do something constructive their work will speak for itself, they wont have to rush to U.S. to sign such a deal where india's interests are bound and gagged.
the case of cultivation-land acquisition is rampant cos every now and then, either builders or other industrialists acquire land by wrong means, i m not imagining these, these issues do come in newspapers and general awareness where the farmers create a spike but are eventually crushed to silence.
when i said farmers shd get their dues, i meant, they shd get the complete amount of their agricultural land,i.e., property wise and their trade wise, just like when a company is acquired, its not paid merely on the basis of the land it stands on, but also by extrapolating its future turnover based on the existing one.
i too agree with you, that better technology shd be employed and make the agriculture advanced one, i hav very well covered this point in my post.
besides education is needed to improve the condition. i agree with u with all my heart. education is the crux of any nation, its foundation and that an enlightened human being is an asset to the nation but those who are not educated, are they beasts?
shd they be treated unfairly , and their misery should be called as 'small town's unfortunate events' ?
one can very well witness, how well this money is being utilized, in Bihar's case. how advanced and fast is their rescue systems & how very well people have finally come out of danger and that water deluged place and are being given remuneration.
people in Rajasthan are not getting enough water supply cos they say the water table has gone well below 400 feet. but they got plenty of means to get for water for the copper industry there where the water table is under 1000 feet. now birla will establish its cement factory, but govt. will supply it water by hook or crook; over utilizing all its means.
regarding kashmir, only if these people are put under one roof of our nation, they would realize their importance and worth as indian nationals. if center works well, they can be given all they want, i.e., respect, jobs, terror-free atmosphere and secularism. and if then they think of separation, they wd become wise enough to gauge their inadequacies to run on their own. its just the matter of patience and proving their competence as a protective, caring and an altruistic govt.
the state govts. were established to cater to regional demands but this cutting of cake should not mean that Delhi is different from U.P or Maharashtra.
if proper efforts of nationalization are done, people of maharashtra, J&K, Gujrat, Bihar, West Bengal wont be different, they would see others problems and would never cause clamor on account of religious or small issues. they would look forward to a peaceful, secular system and work for nation building.
these are small events, no doubt, but drop by drop an ocean fills. if such small tremors will not be taken care of, and the problems are allowed to pile & swell and take a big bad shape, how in the world do u suppose such injustice will be dealt with when today they r like prayers going unanswered? i want the center to rise, so that when these problems clutter under it, they can be considered as big troubles not just area specific sporadic ones, and then they can be brought as priority rather than linger on forever in a hopeless dungeon incarcerated by govt.'s failures and inadequacies.
perhaps i shdnt hav 'sensationalize' the complete aura, and just hav mentioned, what wd it be like if u r not paid for your work to an apt level. if u r snatched off ur land, property u and ur family had been building all ur life, on grounds of industrialization or agriculture or military acquisition or anything for that matter, and u r given nothing but some petty remuneration and hopes to start all over again. this case will involve some <10 people including u n your family members, therefore its not national , and we can call it amongst 'capital city's small unfortunate issues'. how would you react? or how wd any person react? wont they revolt? wont they go to the court to get back their worth?
i didnt sensationalize the issues, i merely put myself in their shoes and was egregiously touched,i.e., i could very well empathize, very well feel their tears trickling on my cheeks.
its being egalitarian, rather than sensationalism!
darkness is omnipresent; to lend light its meaning. Some things are indestructible.Some of these, u can find in indian scenario always :)
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It was a political issue blown out of proportion.
West bengal is the lefts stronghold for over 30 years...
But it has developed well coz never has the central govt supported it.
When finally it got a chance,other political parties made a big issue and riots followed...
Now that the land has been given back to the farmers,lets see how happy they will be...And lets see what happens to Trinamool congress in this election..
I respect your view of development.
But development of what? Land, that is known as Singur, placed somewhere in West Bengal? handful of local engineers? what about the 14,000 farmer families, should they be labour class?
Being a farmer, owner of your own land and working over it is a different status than working as a labor in some industry.
Why should a land owner be stripped of his status and land? Now, my point is, if u take over anybody's flourishing business, u gotto give that businessman not only the present worth of his holdings (in this case, it the price of agricultural land) and an extrapolated amount of their earnings in the next 10 years (monetary amount they get after 10 years of strenuous work on land). Now, who is there to calculate the worth of their present holding in an unbiased and rightful manner? who is going to care about the extrapolation exercise?
people over there are crying, cos they couldn't work for the desired time to reap the agricultural produce, all due to this singur confusion. that is why they are famished, and in desperate need of jobs to feed their families.
If development is required, then why not promote education and give those people choice, how to proceed with their career, like being service class engineer, in management or any other field. Plus there could be one more field, and that is agriculture. Tremendous advancement can be done, excessive engineering, management techniques can be employed to make it a fool proof business, earning huge profits. Trust me, its not a big deal.
hmm..well put!
thanx Rahul!
although its very late to go through your article ..but superb analysis ,,
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