The debates on Nandigram are far from over. After the “successful recapture” of the area by CPM cadre, political analysts are busy writing the obituary of the three-decade-long Left rule in West Bengal.

A survey conducted by a news magazine said more than 60 per cent of their readers want Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to resign, owing the moral responsibility for the tragic incidents. To counter the barrage of allegations, Bhattacharjee has also stepped in to tender an apology.

It seems our media has confined the entire Nandigram developments into two points: either put the entire blame on the CPM and Buddhadeb or present all these incidents as the handiwork of the Maoists. Thus, the issue of acquisition of farmland has been “intelligently” sidelined or subverted.

At the same time, they did not find it important to discuss these developments along with similar kind of incidents that happened in Kalinganagar, Orissa earlier.

On January 2, much before the Nandigram firings, tribals in Kalinganagar, who opposed the acquisition of their land for a proposed steel complex were shot dead by the police.

One stark similarity between Kalinganagar and Nandigram is that at both places people firmly refused to be displaced and the agitators were shot dead in a targeted manner. But, Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced a judicial enquiry whereas the West Bengal comrades went out of way to defend the police action in the name of law and order. Now, Patnaik has reportedly scrapped the SEZ project.

The national media seems to be concentrating only on Buddha’s activities. They intelligently pretend to avoid a larger question on the faults in the existing mechanism which deals with land acquisition for developmental projects.

Our politicians, cutting across political lines, argue that in the liberalisation era, acquiring land for developmental projects, is inevitable. As per reports, 341 SEZs were granted formal approval by the UPA government of which 130 have been notified and 200 proposals are pending with state governments.

In many places, fertile agricultural land is being acquired for setting up SEZs and other developmental activities.When they are evicting peasants from their land, which has been their only source of livelihood, the government needs to give an alternative to these folks. The failure of the administration lies in their inability to find an alternative source of livelihood for our brothers who are as much a part of Incredible India.

Though the government has formulated a policy for the smooth transfer of land, it is fundamentally against the interests of the agrarian population, or that at least is the signal we get from these developments. If the authorities do not conceive a clear policy on land acquisition for developmental projects, such incidents may recur.
If reports from Kerala are to be believed, the Marxist government led by V S Achuthanandan is planning to evict hundreds of families in  connection with the railway line for a proposed container terminal in Vallarpadam in Kochi. The Karnataka government is planning to set up a thermal power plant in Chamalpura, in north Karnataka, which may result in the eviction of around 20,000 people. The dust might have settled in Nandigram, but the debate should be on.