In Bengal this is a season of black humour now, only if one has an eye to see it.  Since the “recapture” of Nandigram by the ruling CPM on November 9, the urban-intellectual-civil segments of the Nandigram defence brigade, shifted its focus on creating a public opinion in Kolkata against the state government. A closer look into the calender of events may recover a history and  uncover a scheme.

Anti-CPM elements in the polity of the state are still dominant -- roughly 32% of valid votes in the bottom and 38% in the top. They may be identified as Congress, Trinamul, and old Socialists. They are against the Communists on ideological ground.

Despite that, the old Congress ideology is still an active ingredient in the trade union movements of tea gardens, jute mills, port, corporation and similar establishments. The urban youth is the only base on which Trinamul operates. The other components against the CPM do not belong to the ideological. 

The freedom enjoyed by the ministers of other parties in the Left Front is one of the motivations of keeping the Front working for so long a time. With Jyoti Basu as the patriarch, the style helped the partners.

Buddhadev Bhattacharjee changed the style and carried his party with him. His style is now famously quoted, “Do it now.” The style worked well with the investors, both national and foreign. On the other hand, he innovated new ways to reach his government to the youth in general, to technology and to cultural workers, who are a relevant section in formation of political opinion of Bengal. 

The anti-CPM parties and colleagues and individuals considered the Industrialisation programme to be the high point to resist the government, the party and Bhattacharjee. They missed Singur and zeroed in on Nandigram.  Rather, Singur set the style of this new industrialisation, where the Communists are creating wealth and property bypassing the capitalist way of primary accumulation.

Such a huge landspace was purchased without raising the real estate value in the area and compensating peasants down to the share-cropper level. No new class of promoters and developers got any occasion to get a formation. The land price was settled at a rate, perhaps highest in the country.

The way and style cannot be liked by those who had stakes in development. The Bengali middle class has a hidden tradition of making quick bucks from government’s  projects. The two World Wars, the ‘43 famine and post-war riots are remembered as events that shored up some business and political individuals to become eminently rich. Even in Rajarhat project of new Kolkata, the stake-holders in development had gathered their share.

In the new projects, the government walked in as a player, specially in the areas of infrastructure, of land acquisition and of controlling the supply line. Nothing was left for the market forces to work in.

The individuals, property owners, interest groups, and beneficiaries of rural peasantry felt that their hopes had been betrayed. They had hoped that the CPM’s industrial policy would open a new raj of looting the peasantry by the interest groups, similar to the abolition of zamindari in 1952 by the Congress, replacing the zamindars by the joteders.

The failure of the interest groups in getting their pound of flesh from the  industrialisation programme, led them to take recourse to the scorched earth policy in Nandigram.

(The writer is an eminent Left thinker & columnist)