CPI-M is exposed
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Singur (Wb), June 30: The CPI-M is "trying to cover up" the Tapasi Malik murder case at Singur being investigated by CBI by "putting pressure" on the UPA government, Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee alleged today. CPI(M) Singur Zonal Committee Secretary Suhrid Baran Dutta and party activist Debu Mallik, arrested for the murder of Mallik at the site of the Tata Motors car plant on December 18 last year, were yesterday remanded to CBI custody by a Channdanagore Court.
"CPI-M has adopted pressure tactics. The party is putting pressure on the UPA government which it is supporting, to cover up the Tapasi Malik murder case," Banerjee told a public meeting here.Expressing doubt whether the people would get justice, she said the CPI(M)'s effort was "directed at either a cover up or getting the arrested party leaders freed". She claimed that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had ordered a cid probe to "terrorise" protestors and to "botch up" the CBI investigation. She said that the people still had faith on the CBI and "we want CBI to do their job".
Indian Marxists CPI (M) finally exposed - caught red handed with Indian oligarchs, Mamata says while Comrador Worldbank colonial slave,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reverted to his pedagogical role while recently releasing a book on the new Asian power dynamics. Singh emphasised that the international system was about power relations and was not a morality play.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said that after being ''exposed'', CPI-M was trying to describe the arrest of Dutta and Malik as a conspiracy.
"CPI-M is exposed. That is why the party is trying to dub the arrest of its leader as a conspiracy," she said. She said it was unfortunate senior CPI-M leaders were trying to defend partymen against whom there were murder charges. "Does the CPI-M think it proper to defend a rapist?" she added".
The Chief Minister, she alleged, had adopted 'double standards' and had no accountability or political will to solve the Singur issue.
Banerjee claimed that immediately after Tapasi Malik's murder, the CPI-M had even tried to implicate her father. Having a dig at the Marxists which had called a Singur Bandh today demanding release of the party leaders, she asked, "why has the party called the Bandh? Only because their leaders were caught?"
Banerjee said that by taking away all the rights of the opposition, the Marxists were accusing the opposition of hatching conspiracies.
She said she would take the issue of state terrorism at Singur and Nandigram to the national level by organising an agitation in Delhi on July 3 and Thiruvanathapuram on July 7. "The victims of Singur and Nandigram will join us and they will seek justice," she said.
PCC demands inclusion of Nandigram Martyrs' names in Obit list
Kolkata: The West Bengal Congress will appeal to Speaker Hasim Abdul Halim for inclusion of the Nandigram and Singur martyrs' names in the obituary list on the opening day of the Assembly session on July 2.
''We will also appeal to the Speaker for a statement from Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee explaining the role and credibility of the CID,'' CLP leader Manas Bhuiya told newsmen here.
He said after the CBI arrested CPI(M) leader Debu Malik for the Tapashi Malik murder case, the Chief Minister and state party secretary Biman Bose said, ''Law takes its own course.'' But when party's zonal committee secretary in Hooghly district Suhrid Dutta was arrested, veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu and party's Central committee member Binoy Konar said it was a political conspiracy, Mr Bhuiya stated.He also said chargesheet was yet to be submitted against those ten, arrested by the CBI at Jananai brick kiln in Nandigram.
''We feel the ruling government will put pressure on the CBI to protect the Tapashi killers,'' he said.
Nimitz
Naval Chief rules out radiation fear from Nimitz. On the other hand, India's powerful communists protested on Tuesday against the first port call by a U.S. aircraft carrier to the country, saying Washington was using New Delhi to counter the power of China and Iran.Protestors say there is risk of radiation leak when the US ship Nimitz docks in Chennai next week, but many nuclear-powered warships have visited India in the past. India sought to calm on Wednesday opposition to the first port call by a U.S. aircraft carrier, saying firm environmental measures were in place for the visit of the nuclear-powered vessel.
In Kolkata, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Suresh Mehta today ruled out any fear of radiations from the US nuclear powered warship USS Nimitz.
"It is the government of India's job to see that the safety of the people is ensured. There are set procedures for it. These have been followed in this case and there is nothing to worry," Mehta told reporters.
Chennai: Officials of the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz have said they could 'neither confirm nor deny' whether any nuclear missiles were on board the ship that will berth here amid growing protests from political parties and environmentalists against its visit. USS Nimitz commanding officer Captain Michael C. Manazir said, 'We cannot confirm the presence or absence of nuclear weapons on board.'The USS Nimitz, about 300 km off Chennai's coast Saturday afternoon, will be in the outer harbour Sunday for a four-day goodwill visit.The US consulate here said in a statement that the ship's visit was 'part of a bilateral and multilateral framework known as the 'Malabar series' of joint Indo-US exercises'.
'We can neither confirm, nor deny the presence of weapons on board the ship,' Rear Admiral John Terence Blake, commander, Carrier Strike Group 11 of the USS Nimitz, told a select group of mediapersons who were taken on a tour of the ship Friday.
'The general US policy is that we do not routinely deploy nuclear weapons on any of our ships, attack submarines or aircraft. We do not deploy (nuclear weapons) routinely. We do not go into specifics,' he said.
'These are warships not cruise liners. But when we go out, we are required to perform a wide range of activities,' he said, adding that these could be 'offensive or defensive'.
The US government has also asserted that the nuclear safety record of US nuclear-powered warships has been outstanding and that there has been no nuclear accident in the 56-plus-year history of the programme.
However, political parties, trade unions, environmentalists and many concerned citizens of Tamil Nadu have stepped up their opposition to the arrival of the USS Nimitz.Apart from the safety concerns, political leaders are also sceptical about India reversing its past policy opposing the transit of nuclear weapons in its neighbourhood.
MDMK leader Vaiko said: '...as the Kalpakkam and Koodankulam atomic power stations are located on Tamil Nadu's coast, there is a fear that the visit of a nuclear-powered warship to the port here would endanger the country's security.'
Communist Party of India (CPI) MP D. Raja added: 'We are surprised to see a reversal of India's age-old policy of not allowing warships into its territorial waters.'
AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha had earlier noted: 'This is a serious issue and the possible radiation hazards to the people of Chennai cannot be taken lightly.'
But defence ministry officials and the US government have rubbished the radiation aspect, pointing out that Nimitz has some 6,000 personnel on board and that any radiation leak would affect the ship's crew first before causing damage to others.
Left-led trade unions like the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), port workers federations and several groups like the All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation and the People's Union for Civil Liberties plan to stage a protest at the Chennai port July 2.
Lawyers S. Shankar and M. Vel Murugan, in their petitions before the Madras High Court Friday and returning to the court Saturday on further direction, have said the central government has been 'unresponsive' to peoples' objections to Nimitz being in Indian waters.
They have demanded a 'detailed safety study' before the vessel is permitted to enter India's territorial waters though a high-level security assessment group of the Defence Ministry had gone on board Thursday.
'Permitting the warship into Indian waters from July 1 would be inimical to the nation's safety, as well as a threat to the ecological and environment stability in the territorial jurisdiction of the nation,' Shankar's petition said, adding the ship would be a 'health hazard'.
Bardhan flays SEZ policy, supports agitating Nagpur farmers
By IANS
Saturday June 30, 09:23 PM
Nagpur, June 30 (IANS) Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan Saturday reiterated his party's opposition to the government's Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policy, dubbing it a state-sponsored ploy to plunder the country's scarce land resource for capitalists.
'Fast track industrial development happened in India in the earlier decades even when there were no SEZs and there is no reason why it cannot happen now,' Bardhan said at a public function here.
Referring to a spate of SEZs coming up in Maharashtra, the Leftist leader whose party supports the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government from outside asked whether all the farmland in the state was meant for the Ambanis - referring to the industrialist brothers, Mukesh and Anil Ambani.
Expressing solidarity with the farmers in Shivangaon whose land is under acquisition for the MIHAN (Multi-modal International Hub Airport at Nagpur) project, Bardhan wondered why it could not be shifted some kilometres away from the city.
The cargo hub project, as MIHAN is popularly known, has been taken up in tandem with the multi-product SEZ that is being developed alongside the Sonegaon airport under expansion.
'Don't budge an inch from here unless a fair compensation is offered to you and a proper rehabilitation scheme is in place,' Bardhan exhorted the Shivangaon residents who are set to lose both their houses and agricultural land.
The moderately sized Sonegaon airport is set to metamorphose into one of the biggest in the country as a part of the ambitious MIHAN project. While 644 hectares of land in Shivangaon is under acquisition for the airport expansion, over 2,000 hectares have been acquired for the SEZ.
The proposed Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) depot of aviation giant Boeing is a part of the MIHAN-SEZ project, which its executive head R.C. Sinha claims to be the biggest ongoing project in the country.
Though the project did have its share of sporadic protests including the one led by activist Medha Patkar and litigation in its five-year run-up, the land acquisition process did not meet much resistance on ground, as much of the land was either non-agricultural or fallow.
The grumbling against the 'pittance' that the government offered as compensation - Rs.70,000 per acre for the land in the rural area and Rs.200,000-250,000 for that coming within the municipal limits - rose into a roar a couple of months back when Bombay High Court judge J.N. Patel sold his ancestral land near Shivangaon for a whopping Rs.25.5 million an acre.
On June 12, a state government appointed committee headed by urban development department's Principal Secretary Ramanand Tiwari had promised the residents of Shivangaon that they would recommend a higher compensation for the land.
Communist Party of India was squeezed between the growing Sino-Soviet dispute, wandering from one position to another as its leadership, polarised between the two giants, pulled the party in different directions post-independence.
CPI was left stranded as Soviet Union not only turned warm towards Nehru but even stated in 1958 that he and not the Communists would take India towards socialism, claim the de-classfied CIA papers, with a chapter on CPI in the wake of Sino-Soviet dispute.
CPI leadership, the papers claim, stood polarised to the extent that support for CPSU (Soviet Union) over CCP threatened a split in the party.
During the 1950s, CPSU gained control over the central leadership of the CPI, leading to a strong resentment and growth of a Left wing within, opposed to USSR and closer to China. The dispute in CPI was on the path to be adopted in revolutionary struggle.
Ranadive's own methods of urban insurrection failed miserably in early 1950s and led to the ‘‘Andhra leadership'' gaining voice, demanding that it adopt the pragmatic Chinese method of two-stage revolution - of allying with anti-feudal rich peasants and anti-imperialist sections of urban bourgeoisie.
It was in the wake of Mao-Stalin face-off that the CPI drama unfolded. While Ranadive turned bitter and attacked Mao, bizarre turn of events saw even CPSU agree to a two-stage revolution, leaving the urban insurrectionists stranded. The ‘‘Andhra leadership'' not only took charge but also apologised to Mao for Ranadive's bitter attacks on him, says the CIA papers.
The CIA papers report details of the international events, with CPI swinging between the two communist regimes on the stand it should take.
As it notes, ‘‘A degree of Chinese influence was implanted and permanently legitimised within the CPI as a source of inspiration and guidance second only to CPSU.'' It says that ‘‘factionalism, blatant indiscipline and regional disregard for central authority which had grown during the struggle against Ranadive became permanent features of CPI life to a degree seen in hardly any other Communist party.
The authority of the central CPI machinery was weakened in relation to the provincial party organisations that never again did the central party leadership make a serious attempt to enforce a uniform rigid line upon the often defiant provinces.''
Early in post-1947 period, the CPI was forced to swallow its words as CPSU abruptly turned accommodating towards Nehru, doing away with its hostility towards the first prime minister of India. It “bludgeoned” the Indian Leftists into following suit.
As CPSU continued to turn warm towards Nehru, CPI had little choice. It led to growth of a dissident element in “Leftists” inclined towards China and opposed to the right turn of CPSU. The Sino-Indian border dispute led to serious problems.
While Ranadive and the other leftists in CPI were “drawn increasingly into an identification with and defence of Beijing’s position in the border dispute, while right faction leaders became increasingly inclined to conciliate Indian nationalist opinion by supporting the Nehru government's stand and condemning Beijing.”
The evolution of rape from a largely random event into a premeditated, organized act of terrorism during warfare has motivated international action to punish, and thus to hopefully prevent, such activity in the future.
Rape, class and the State
-- By Uma Chakravati
While rape may take the form of individual violence of men against women, often, as disturbingly, rape occurs as an instrument of repression, and is used as a political weapon. It then becomes a potent instrument for the intimidation of whole sections of people in which women are specifically the victims of a peculiarly brutal and dehumanizing form of violence. Violence by individual men on individual women is itself a serious violation of women's rights but in the context of civil liberties it is important to highlight the growing incidence of custodial rape by agencies of the State such as forest officials, army personnel, and especially by policemen.
http://www.pucl.org/from-archives/Gender/rape-class.htm
Peoplesmarch writes in his article,`Rape: As An Instrument Of
State Repression In Nepal’:
However, use of rape as an instrument of repression by the reactionary forces has negatively benefited the revolutionary forces. First of all, they are able to expose the sexist nature of the exploitative class-based state apparatus. Secondly, they are able to expose the hollowness of reactionary ideology whereby, they use brute physical force including the phallus as a weapon against the ideologically equipped revolutionary forces. Thirdly, they are able to channalise the fury of the raped victim, her family, community into a fighting force. Fourthly, the sense of isolation that is generated amongst the masses from the state apparatus after every such mass rape is in turn channalised into the mass-line, thus giving them security and a sense of belonging. Fifthly, such acts on women have helped in forging unity between struggling men and women to fight together against the state apparatus, thus making them more class conscious. Sixthly, such mass rape is making a mockery of ‘virgin worship’ in the form of "Kumari Puja" (the so-called living goddess) whose patron is the king, the head of Royal Nepal Army, thus undermining feudal culture. On top of this, the monolithic male structure of reactionary armed force, together with its crime on women, makes the masses gender sensitive which, in a long run has importance for the revolutionary women’s liberation movement.
http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-march130305.htm
Against Our Will : Men, Women and Rape
>> By: Susan Brownmiller
Indira Gandhi's Indian Army had successfully routed the West
Pakistanis and had abruptly concluded the war in Bangladesh when
small stories hinting at mass rape of Bengali women began to appear
in American newspapers. The first account I read, from the Los
Angeles Times syndicated service, appeared in the New York Post a
few days before Christmas, 1971. It reported that the Bangladesh
Government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in recognition of the
sufferings of Bengali women at the hands of Pakistani soldiers, had
proclaimed all raped women "heroines" of the war of independence.
Farther on in the story came this ominous sentence: "In the
traditional Bengali village society, where women lead cloistered lives, rape
victims often are ostracised."
Two days after Christmas a more explicit story, by war correspondent
Joseph Fried, appeared in the New York Daily News, datelines
Jessore. Fried described the reappearance of young Bengali women on
the city streets after an absence of nine months. Some had been
packed off to live with relatives in the countryside and others had
gone into hiding. "The precautions," he wrote, "proved wise, if not
always effective."
A stream of victims and eyewitnesses tell how truckloads of
Pakistani soldiers and their hireling razakars swooped down on villages in
the night, rounding up women by force. Some were raped on the spot. Others
were carried off to military compounds. Some women were still their when
Indian troops battled their way into Pakistani
strongholds. Weeping survivors of villages razed because they were
suspected of siding with the Mukti Bahini freedom fighters told how
wives were raped before their eyes of their bound husbands, who were
then put to death. Just how much of it was the work of Pakistani
"regulars" is not clear. Pakistani officers maintain that their men
were too disciplined "for that sort of thing".
Fearing I had missed the story in other papers, I put in a call to a
friend on the foreign desk of The New York Times. "Rape of Bengali
Women?" He laughed. "I don't think so. It doesn't sound like a Times
story." A friend at Newsweek was similarly sceptical. Both said
they'd keep a lookout for whatever copy passed their way. I got the
distinct impression that both men, good journalists, thought I was
barking up an odd tree. [NBC's Liz Trotta was one of the few
American reporters to investigate the Bangladesh rape story at this
time. She filed a TV report for the weekend news.]
In the middle of January the story gained sudden credence. An Asian
relief secretary for the World Council of Churches called a press
conference in Geneva to discuss his two-week mission to Bangladesh.
The Reverend Kentaro Buma reported that more that 200,000 Bengali
women had been raped by Pakistani soldiers during the nine-month
conflict, a figure that had been supplied to him by the Bangladesh
authorities in Dacca. Thousands of the raped women had become
pregnant, he said. And by tradition, no Moslem husband would take
back a wife who had been touched by another man, even if she had
been subdued by force. "The new authorities of Bangladesh are trying
their best to break that tradition," Buma informed the newsmen.
"They tell the husbands the women were victims and must be
considered national heroines. Some men have taken their spouses back
home , but these are very, very few."
http://www.drishtipat.org/1971/war-susan.html
Bangladesh National Party comes into power on October 1, 2001. Islamic Fundamentalists groups aligned to the new government go on a rampage. They loot, kill, and drive thousands of Hindus out of their homes. The biggest atrocities are on women - hundreds are raped. The following are just a few incidents...
October 12 - Hindu women are publicly gang-raped in Barisal district. A report in Bengali says, "The barbaric gang-raping of two teenage girls by fundamentalists will shame the entire world and challenge the very existence of civilisation."
October 14 - Fundamentalists go on a rampage on Hindu minorities in Chandshi, Bahadurpur, Barthi, Pingolkati, Ashukati, Agailzara. Again, Hindu women are publicly gang-raped.
October 21 - Indifference of the government results in an increase in cases of rape in Khulna and Barisal regions.
October 22 - Some Bangladeshi newspapers publish photos of young Hindu women who were molested when their homes were attacked by fundamentalists. Hindu women flee to distant villages and towns and to India. Rokeya Kabir, heads womens rights group - Nari Pragati Sangha - says that they have met women who were raped, but will not speak because they fear more attacks.
October 22 - Report of attack on a Hindu woman - Shefali Rani - a village council member in Barisal. Fundamentalists attack and ransack her home on October 2, 2001. They beat her up and then gang-rape her. She flees and seeks refuge in another district.
October 22- Anil Kumar Shil, a farmer, tells reporters that his teenage daughter was gang-raped by a gang of fundamentalists.
October 24 - Two girls - Supama (8 years old) and Sulekha Das (7 years old) are raped in Bhola, Barisal. Their father is forced to watch and is strangled and killed when he tries to help his daughters. Supama dies. Sulekha is still in hospital.
October 28 - Reports of women fleeing to India. 250 entered West Bengal and 370 entered Tripura. The actual numbers are expected to be much higher than the official ones. Intelligence officials in Calcutta believe that Hindu middle class families in Bangladesh have sent 3000-4000 women and girls to West Bengal.
October 28 More rape cases in Barishal district. NDTV, India, reporters spend three hours here and learn of more than 50 cases of rape and loot. Names of women who had been raped are not revealed.
November 16 In Ullapara, Poornima Sarkar, in her early twenties, is raped by fundamentalists.
November 16 "In one night, nearly two hundred women were raped in Char Fashion of Bhola, and amongst them was an eight-year-old girl, a middle-aged amputee, and a seventy-year-old woman," says Daily Star News. "The women were raped in paddy fields, in the bush, on the riverbank...The village was sprinkled with the bodies of molested women, numb with pain and shock in the aftermath of nightlong abuse."
This is the tip of the iceberg. Many Hindu women who were raped refuse to reveal their identities for fear of inviting more attacks from fundamentalists...
The persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh is nothing new; indeed millions of Hindus were massacred in the fight for Bangladeshi Independence. It is ironic how a community which has sacrificed so much for their country is now the target of this, seemingly government sponsored, rampage.
Let your voice be heard, speak out against religious oppression and the destruction of Hindu Society. Join us on Saturday 15 December 2001 at 12pm outside the Bangladesh High Commission, 28 Queens Gate, South Kensington, London. Nearest tube: South Kensington and Gloucester Road (both on Piccadilly Line).
We thank you for your support. Published by Hindu Human Rights
http://www.hindu. com/2007/ 06/29/stories/ 2007062955511500 .htm
India-China relationship a big stabiliser, says Yechury
P. S. Suryanarayana
SINGAPORE: The process of improving the India-China relationship, now in “progress,” will be a “big stabiliser” on the international scene. Portraying this prospect as a new global dynamic, Sitaram Yechury, Politburo Member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said here on Wednesday that New Delhi “should not succumb, cannot afford to succumb to pressures” from the U.S.
*Mr. Yechury said India could register “a big leap” in the energy domain if its ongoing negotiations with the U.S. over a civilian nuclear deal were to succeed. For the present, though, Washington was practising “a carrot-and-stick policy” of promising this deal and asking India to “tune” itself to U.S. interests on the global stage.* (Emphasis added.)
In this evolving context, the CPI(M) was continuing to urge New Delhi to pursue “an independent foreign policy,” he said, addressing the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) here. Welcoming him, ISAS Chairman Gopinath Pillai traced the centrality of the CPI(M) to India’s politics and policies today.
Mr. Yechury, here at the invitation of Singapore Foreign Ministry, emphasised that “an important element of India’s Look-East policy” would be the “improvement of relations with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and with China.” Singapore “is the gateway” for India’s Look-East policy” and “an important concept-maker” in the development of the ASEAN region.
On the India-U.S. civil nuclear energy talks, he said “a very important element is the right of India to reprocess the spent fuel.” If the issue were to remain unresolved, India would be “saddled with nuclear waste” that could pose a problem for the entire region.
Speaking about “the future of Indian politics” as seen from the CPI(M) perspective, Mr. Yechury said “there is a very high air of optimism” despite the present and potential complexities. Presenting the CPI(M) as the thought-leader and a proactive player in seeking to bridge the gap between “the Shining India and the Suffering India,” he said “the expectation” of the people was that the party “will continuously play the watchdog role” at the Centre. The CPI(M) was “not a lapdog” of the Centre, he underlined by explaining the political equations at stake.
On India’s economic profile, Mr. Yechury said: “Why is China attracting so much more foreign direct investment (FDI) than we are? The one single fact is the lack of infrastructure [in India]. And, who built all this [in China]? The State is the most important economic player in China.”
Perfect blend
“We went to China to find out. In the telephonic service sector, all the services are provided by three companies, and all three are 100 per cent public-owned companies. There is 100 per cent FDI in the production of hardware …. We keep telling our Government that we must learn from China. … It is perfectly possible to protect your national interest and at the same time permit foreign investment to enlarge your economic activity. So, we are saying: ‘Do exactly what China is doing.’ Not that China is doing, and we are opposing in India.”
Beg to differ, Mr Basu
No sensible person will agree with the observation of the Marxist patriarch, Mr Jyoti Basu, that the alternative compensation package of the industry minister, Mr Nirupam Sen, is the best for the Singur farmers, whose fertile lands have been forcibly taken by the LF government leaving once well-to-do families in the lurch.
It is beyond anyone’s comprehension as to how a person of Mr Basu’s stature can do a political somersault at this age. And that too within a span of only several days of his calling Miss Mamata Banerjee to his house and agreeing on most of the points.
The package will neither offer jobs nor equity shares, as the Jindals had spelt out for their steel plant in Purulia. In sharp contrast, Mr Sen’s deal offers “a skills upgrade” to farmers who refuse to accept the compensation cheque and alternative job opportunities. How can the farmers, who do not have skills of working in a factory, be attracted by the stunt that they will be offered “a skills upgrade”?
The CPI-M is spreading misinformation that the opposition parties in West Bengal are against industrialisation, which is far from the truth.
Mr Basu seems to have lost his head owing to the burden of age because of which he always harps on West Bengal doing exemplary things in the country. This is why he claimed that nobody in the country had ever heard of a compensation package similar to the one the state government intended to offer to the Singur farmers.
JUGNAUTH PUNDIT,
18 June, Kolkata.
Will yield nothing
Mr Nirupam Sen’s alternative package for Singur farmers will yield nothing. It will not mollify the agitating farmers because it is a palliative and will not have far-reaching results.
Mr Sen is blowing hot and cold. First, he asserted that land already taken could not be given back because legal complications would arise and Mr Jyoti Basu supported it. Now Mr Sen says: “Although we cannot guarantee jobs for every farmer, we can help them”.
The farmers are apprehensive that they will be displaced and even if they are rehabilitated, they will not be able to adapt themselves to the new environment of their new places. Their apprehension is being fuelled by the opposition parties who are against land acquisition and are bent on provoking the disgruntled and dithering farmers.
There can be no debate regarding the need for industrialisation and all political parties, except the extreme left-wing, are unanimous in this respect. But the point at issue is how the deprived farmers would benefit because Mr Sen himself has admitted that adequate compensation cannot be given and to provide each family of farmers with at least one job is a moonshine.
The minister has admitted that land acquired cannot be given back and there is no way out from this baffling situation. So we cannot concur with Mr Jyoti Basu when he describes the industry minister’s alternative package as the best ever. At best it is a temporary respite, a palliative, not a permanent solution. We can surmise that it can never be the best ever package because the minister is going to offer a skills upgrade, nothing else.
TARAKDAS MAJUMDER,
18 June, Kolkata.
Basu, the politician
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=13&theme=&usrsess=1&id=160672
Mr Jyoti Basu is being quite unreasonable when he seconds the industry minister Mr Nirupam Sen’s alternative package for Singur farmers and calls it the best ever.
But then that’s just like him. Politics has always blinded him to the more sensible aspects of an issue, and so when he proceeds to deliberate upon an issue or gives his opinion of it, or reviews a thing, he always does so like a doctrinaire Marxist who does not consider it worth his salt to consider the other practicable and more sensible aspects of the matter. His politician’s view of an issue at the expense of its moral and humane aspects has confounded it even more. The problem with Mr Basu is that he cannot rise above his level as a politician. He can’t see that Mr Sen’s package is a false promise. But that suits him as a politician.
DEBASHIS SEN,
18 June, Kolkata.
No takers
There is is no denying that land acquisition at Singur from the beginning was a Himalayan blunder. There is no job assurance in Mr Nirupam Sen’s compensation package; it only says the government will provide vocational training to at least one member of each affected family.
Mr Jyoti Basu, to safeguard the party’s interests, always adopts a shrewd policy to run with the hare and hunt with the hound. It is unlikely that the alternative package will be acceptable to the aggrieved land losers.
GOVINDA BAKSHI,
20 June, Budge Budge.
Where is protection?
If people do not want industry, why is a “people’s government” so desperate in setting up industries? Will Mr Nirupam Sen’s package offer a good, healthy future? Can any package assure the freedom to work in one’s own land? Can any package assure a hea
