Cultural Anthropology: Buddha's blunder

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Buddha's blunder

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jacobthanni said...: Saturday, February 3, 2007

‘Buddha’s policy was a costly mistake’

DH News Service New Delhi:

Terming Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government’s land acquisition policy in West Bengal as a “costly mistake”, a group of Left-oriented intellectuals have demanded that all planned land acquisitions should be made public by taking into confidence the local self-government institutions.

Terming Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government’s land acquisition policy in West Bengal as a “costly mistake”, a group of Left-oriented intellectuals have demanded that all planned land acquisitions should be made public by taking into confidence the local self-government institutions. They have also asked the government to seriously think about alternative sites for industrialisation that would not lead to the displacement of peasants.

In an interim report by the Citizens’ Committee on Singur and Nandigram comprising of eminent historians Sumit and Tanika Sarkar, Journalist Sumit Chakrabarty, senior Supreme Court advocate Colin Gonsalves and Delhi University Professor Krishna Majumdar dismissed the claim of the CPI-M party that the anti-land acquisition movement in these two places was the handiwork of the main opposition Trinamool Congress Party.

“This is a genuine and spontaneous people’s movement and people are angry as they were not consulted and the amount of compensation is far below the market rate,” Sumit Sarkar told reporters here on Friday after his visit to Singur and Nandigram. Maintaining that acquisition of fertile agricultural land was necessary for industrialisation in West Bengal Tanika Sarkar said contrary to government’s claim that only one per cent land in the state was fallow more than 18 per cent of such land was available in the state.

“The state government said the land given to the Tatas for the small car factory in Singur is monocrop land if not actually fallow. But this is based on a land survey of early seventies and four deep tubewells and innumerable shallow tubewells have made this land well-irrigated. We found the Singur villages green and prosperous and there is no reason why such fertile land should be given to the Tatas,” she said.

The policy would lead to the creation of swelling army of migrant agricultural labourers, Tanika Sarkar claimed.

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‘Buddha’s policy was a costly mistake’ »; February 3, 2007 at 5:24 PM

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